Activities at Harton Grange Care Home
We understand that the people we support have passions and interests that could be difficult to pursue after moving into a care home – but that doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to try! Some hobbies can define a person, so our Activities Coordinators are dedicated to ensuring that everyone we support is able to do what makes them happy to the best of their abilities. Social events are organised with individual tastes in mind and with the idea that residents have the opportunity to try new and exciting things.
Marius Sidoriuc
Hi, my name is Marius, I am the activities coordinator here at Harton Grange. I joined Barchester's family in 2021, as I found their approach and standards on dementia very interesting. Since early 2022 I work for Barchester as both activities coordinator and care assistant. In 2018, I started my journey in health and social care as a care assistant and very soon after, I completed courses on dementia and activities (NAPA, level 2) and I worked as both activities coordinator and care assistant in Kent. I'm also an apprentice in health and social care. I've met some amazing people that have guided my understanding of dementia.
The most important thing for me is to see our residents achieving a meaningful raison d'etre, living as they like and to benefit from a range of activities starting from Namaste to reminiscing and spiritual needs (such as praying or listening to hymns), art and craft, armchair exercises, music therapy or finger nail pamper sessions.
I like to acknowledge that I am working as a part of a whole team, including the fantastic management, hospitality and maintenance departments, promoting a person centred approach for each resident and we are glad to know each persons preferences and abilities in order to plan how the day will look with them. One way we are able to do this is through our residents' and family' meetings where we try to let everyone have their say about the way they want to live and the activities they take part in.
Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure
Activities and Events Partnerships
As part of our bespoke life-enrichment programmes, we host a number of live virtual events in the home on a regular basis through a number of partnerships with places of interest and world class performance companies
Life at Harton Grange Care Home
Crystal Palace Chronicles
We had a lovely time joining Graham Whitlock for an exciting virtual event to discuss his book ‘The Crystal Palace Chronicles: Star of Nimrod’.
Our residents were thrilled to find out more about the book and the fictional character Joe, who went on a rollercoaster adventure travelling back in time to the heyday of Victorian Crystal Palace.
Everyone had lots of fun during the virtual talk, as Graham took them on a clever and hilarious adventure. A great time was had by all.
Gardening Club
We are getting our garden ready for the summer by helping Marius pot some plants and flowers. We got some compost and potted some beautiful flowers that we can admire them in their glory while sitting outside, after we finished potting, we sat on our balcony and put the world to rights! We love a good old natter!
Arts and crafts
Today at Harton Grange we thoroughly enjoyed an afternoon of arts and crafts. Out came the paints and stencils, we all had a great afternoon. While the paint was drying we all chatted about our childhood and what we used to paint in school, we then listened to some 60’s music before starting our second coat of paint! We really look forward to our sessions.
A Spring afternoon in the garden
On a beautiful day in April, our activities co-ordinator took some residents for a stroll around the Gardens at Harton Grange. We stopped to admire the beautiful plants and smell the flowers. It was lovely to get some sun on our faces! We stopped when we saw some fluffy dandelions and we made a wish as we blew them away, what an enjoyable afternoon we had!
Conversations by the Pond
We had a lovely time joining Henry Slator for an exciting virtual event to discuss his book ‘Conversations at the Pond’.
Henry had an unusual writing journey, which many of our residents found inspiring, he underwent chemotherapy in early 2020, which allowed him to rediscover his light-hearted outlook on life by imagining conversations with creatures in and around his large garden pond and adding buckets of fun.
The entertaining Conversations at the Pond, with its mass of colourful illustrations, took our residents along his journey, they felt inspired, cheered and loved hearing all about Henry’s experiences.
The Astor's at Cliveden
Our residents came together to enjoy an exciting virtual talk courtesy of the team at National Trust Talks Service. The illustrated talk took us closer to one of Cliveden’s most famous families, the Astors. Our residents were able to discover what motivated William Waldorf Astor, America’s richest man, to purchase Cliveden in 1893 and how the estate became the centre of high society in the 1920 s and 30 s thanks to his son Waldorf and daughter in law Nancy Astor.
