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
Angji’s Art Club
Here at The Fernes we have started a new club, with our Home Administrator, Angji Carr, Angji is very talented when it comes to arts and crafts, so we decided what better person to run our new arts and crafts club!
The club is held every Tuesday afternoon and every week is a different theme, the residents have had a go at Decoupage, pumpkin carving, poppy making and various other crafts, they are all looking forward to the up and coming weeks with the Christmas theme in mind.
Our residents are loving it, it’s also a lovely chance for everyone to get together for coffee and a natter.
Fish & Chip Night
Residents, families, friends and staff tucked into some good ol chip shop grub during our general knowledge quiz in September. The winning team from the last quiz night struck again with the highest scores and won a fabulous prize!
One of our residents mentioned what a success the evening was and what a fantastic turn out we had. Highlands Fish & Chip Shop couldn’t have delivered any better! They cooked up 46 portions of delicious cod for everyone to indulge in, along with chips, sauces—and even threw in some pickled eggs.
It was a massive delight and we are very much looking forward to hosting this event again in the near future.
Isle of Wight Trip
We had a wonderful trip to the Isle of Wight with three of our gentlemen residents. We boarded the minibus in the morning and travelled across on the Wightlink ferry.
Our first port of call was the Haven Falconry Bird of Prey Centre, where the owner had kindly donated tickets for us to go and see all the birds of prey and watch a fabulous bird show. The highlight of this was Ernie holding a vulture. He said he didn’t realise how heavy they were.
Back on the bus, we got and went to one of our fellow Barchester’ homes Orchard House, where they put on a magnificent spread for our lunch, which was a much-needed break for a coffee. We would like to thank Orchard House for their hospitality; we had a lovely lunch.
Back home, the gentlemen said what an absolutely wonderful day they had, and expressed it was the nicest thing they had done for a long time!
Messy Vintage
Residents had a creative afternoon getting messy with our volunteer Jill at her craft and church activity class, which is called 'Messy Vintage'. They made some tasty treats to hang in the trees for the birds, and Jill picked some beautiful flowers from her garden to show off. Everyone loved hearing a story from the bible, creating a craft and singing along to their favourite hymns.
Messy Vintage happens every month and we love welcoming friends & family to join in for this spiritual afternoon.
Summer Fête
Residents, staff & families all joined in with the fun at The Fernes for our summer fête in July. We raised money for The Rainbow Centre, a charity that helps children, adults, families and carers affected by neurological conditions.
There was a BBQ, games, stalls,a raffle, a tombola, live music, a children’s entertainer—and even an ice cream van showed up for the event. There was something for everyone and we even had some of our local neighbours come join in!
Everyone had a fabulous time and the sun stayed shining for us all.
We are a Divisional Winner!
Well done to everyone at The Fernes, as our home has been named as a Divisional Winner in the 'Team of the Year' category for the 2019 Barchester Care Awards.
