Activities at Oaklands Care Home
Our home is always full of life, and we can thank our wonderful Activities Coordinators for this. Dedication to creating a unique and interesting activities programme is what sets us apart from other homes. We always take into consideration that some people would prefer to pursue their own interests, which is why our team strive to incorporative activities that cater to a wide range of tastes and hobbies. Our trips out are always fun and exciting as well, and residents are guaranteed to return with stories to tell their loved ones!
Anna Bate & Jo Lawn
Anna is our Activity Lead. She started working at Barchester over 14 years ago at our sister home Hilton Park. Having built strong relationships with staff, residents and families, Anna brings lots of fun to our home. Anna loves to sing, dance and laugh and generally brings oodles of joy to ours days.
Working alongside Anna is Jo who started her career here at Oaklands as a carer on Elms community in 2014 developing a passion for dementia care and completing her social care N+VQ Levels 2 and 3. Jo Joined the activity team 3 years ago and has since become the homes dementia champion, championing for a better lifestyle for our resident through staff training and regular audits.
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 Oaklands Care Home
The Importance of Sensory Activities
We care for lots of our residents in the comfort of their beds ,and we do lots of sensory activities exploring their senses. We have used fibre optic touch lamps and glow sticks to engage with both their visual and touch senses. The activities can be very calming for our residents living with Dementia, it can encourage relaxation and improve the overall well-being for our residents.
Both Norma and Jane loved the fibre optic lamp and the colours of the glow sticks alone with the touch of the silky scarfs .
Stay and Play!
Our first stay and play session of the new year was fabulous, with both our little people there mums and our residents having a great time interacting with each other, sharing tales, songs were sung and most of all lots of laughter was shared.
Intergenerational activities are beneficial to all parties involved, it can help both feel valued and cared for, it can help to increase self-esteem and feelings of well-being.
Carols by Candle Light
Our carols by candle light trip to Bottisham church, was a cold one but was heart-warming at the same time. We had the opportunity to sing and enjoy beautiful voices whilst taking in the setting of the candle lit church, we enjoy moments of silliness as Jackie saw herself in the mirror wearing a staff members woolly hat and she said “it’s silly but warm”
Judging the Pumpkin Parade
Visiting our local primary school and judging their pumpkin parade has become an annual activity for our residents, we love to see how creative all the children(and parents)are!!
Residents enjoying seeing the excitement on the children’s faces as they show of their pumpkins and we take great pleasure in awarding them ala with a prize.
Keeping our local connections is so important for our residents wellbeing and we try to visit the school at least once a month.
Barchester Care Awards - We're Winners!
The Dementia Care Champion award, presented by Claire Peart, National Lead Dementia Nurse Specialist. This award is for an individual who has championed the person-centred philosophy for those living with dementia. And the award goes to Jo Lawn from Oaklands Care Home. Congratulations!
A Visit from Father Philip
Meeting residents religious and spiritual needs is important to us at Oaklands and when Audrey came to live with us and her and her family expressed their desire for her to continue with her religious believes we sourced help from the catholic community locally and found out the time of local mass services but also we found Father Philip who was willing to visit Audrey in the home setting and will continue to visit every other week. Audrey was so happy meeting him and looks forward to him coming again.
