Activities at The Fernes Care Home
At The Fernes we endeavour to make our care as personal as possible, including when it comes to activities. We will give you a 'Getting to Know Me' booklet for you to fill out with your loved one before they arrive, which includes a little life history and a tick sheet for a vast amount of activities. This enables us to offer the activities we know they will enjoy and enables us to learn valuable information about their lives and what might stimulate them in conversations and trips.
Our specialist Activities and Lifestyle staff make sure there are always meaningful activities to take part in, such as helping in the garden, baking some bread to have with our dinner, and trips out to various locations nearby such as the beach and the garden centres. Residents are encouraged to take part, but it is always the resident’s choice to participate or not as we believe that having choice is very important to help our residents feel in control of their lives. There are activities on offer every day (and night for those night owls) in the form of word puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, arts and crafts, needle crafts and board games to name a few. We have entertainment that is organised at least twice a month such as Music for Health, Zoolab or musicians, and also have a wonderful Yoga instructor who comes every other week.
Activities are provided by everyone in our home from carers and specialised activities staff, right through to our admin team. If there is a task that needs doing and a resident would like to do it, such as sealing envelopes and putting stamps on or handing out popcorn for our Movie Mondays, they are very welcome to help out which enables us to give them a better feeling of purpose and self-worth.
We are a registered member of the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA), which means that we are always working to make the quality of life of all of our residents as high as possible by working with person-centred activities that aim to stimulate our residents, both mentally and physically.
Sophie Wasteney
Hi, I'm Sophie, I am the Activities Lead at The Fernes. I've worked in the care sector for 26 years and here at The Fernes for 3 of those. When I started here I worked in care so really got to know the residents, relatives and home very well. When the Activities Lead role arose I naturally jumped at the opportunity as it was one aspect of care I really wanted to do as I really enjoy making people happy. As you cannot put a price on a smile!
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 The Fernes Care Home
Halloween Celebrations
There is no better way to celebrate the month of October than with carving our very own pumpkins. We not only decorated the whole home, decorated Halloween cookies, but our residents actually got involved and made their own pumpkin creations!
Macmillan Coffee Morning
Our Macmillan Coffee Morning was a huge success again this year. The staff and residents baked some beautiful cakes and we all enjoyed a coffee and a catch up whilst raising money for a great cause.
The Pianist
We recently had a lady join us here at The Fernes from another home, and she has settled in really well. She loves to play the piano, so we have been getting her to teach the staff and residents some new songs and having a good old fashioned sing-along.
Warer Art
We have discovered the magic of water art here at The Fernes; it's magical and not at all messy. The residents are really enjoying these art classes.
Parachute Fun
As always, the parachute game is a huge success. We love to throw the ball and the balloon on the parachute. It's also a great prop for some gentle arm exercises to keep us supple and ease the joints.
Exercise Class
Activities Coordinator, Hayley, has started up a new exercise class for our residents. It's great fun and involves exercising with lots of props and music. We play balloon tennis and have lots of gentle movements in order for our bodies to keep limbered up and moving, which is a very important task as we get older. The music is always a big hit and we ended up singing aswell!
