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
Carehome.co.uk Awards
We are proud to announce that we have won a carehome.co.uk award! We have been named as one of the top 20 care homes in South East England for 2018. Well done to everyone who made this possible! Please click here to view the list of winners.
Food, Fun & Feels at The Fernes
February is nearly over, and boy has it been a busy one here at The Fernes! We loved watching the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics and have been watching a very wintery Frozen Planet for our Movie Mondays.
We enjoyed celebrating Valentine’s Day and made gifts for our loved ones and each other. We made photo frames, postcards and letters and did some flower arranging with gorgeous red roses and tulips for our table centre pieces. We also made some little heart cakes too, which were really yummy!
We also celebrated Pancake Day and did lots of flipping, giving everyone the chance to customise their own pancake with a choice of the traditional lemon and sugar, different flavours of syrups and whipped cream. They went down a treat and the residents had a brilliant time too!
Another celebration was National Pizza day. We topped our own pizzas and shared them throughout the home for dinner. They were super scrumptious and brilliant fun to make!
We are looking forward to March, and will be welcoming some little ducklings into the world for Easter. They arrive on 26th March and will leave us around a week later, after we have watched them hatch and make their first quacks!
If you would like to know more about activities here at The Fernes, please do not hesitate to contact us and talk to Kat or Sophie on the Lifestyle & Activities Team.
Macmillan Coffee Morning
Residents, visitors and staff all had a wonderful time at our Macmillan Coffee Morning. There were lots of cakes, biscuits, teas and coffees available as we tried to raise money for a fantastic charity. In the end we managed to raise an incredible £237! Thank you to all who attended the morning.
1 Year Anniversary
We had a wonderful time celebrating our 1st birthday here at the Fernes! The champagne was flowing as residents, visitors and staff discussed all the wonderful things that have happened in the home over the last year. The wonderful Betsy performed her 'Musical Memory' show for everyone in attendance and the General Manager made a speech to all as well. Here's to the next year!
Care Home Open Day
The Mayor of Fareham, Councillor Geoff Fazackarley, and the Mayoress, Tina Fazackarley, came along to our Open Day and met with guests, residents and staff at The Fernes. Residents thoroughly enjoyed the 1950’s atmosphere created at the home by staff dressing up, and many of them danced the afternoon away to familiar '50s and '60s music.
Staff and residents, who are always keen to do their bit for charity, were also celebrating Fundraising Week and invited their Care Home Open Day guests to get involved with the great bake off, raffle & tombola. We managed to raise £110 in total for Barchester's Charitable Foundation.
Dementia Awareness Week
The Fernes took part in Dementia Awareness Week by supporting the local Alzheimer's Society and Dementia Friendly Hampshire display stand in Fareham Shopping Centre.
The home also hosted a number of different events for Dementia Awareness Week, including a balloon release for Dementia Action; residents and their families sponsored balloons and they were released at 3:00 p.m on Tuesday 16th May. The balloon that has travelled furthest by 30th June wins a prize!
They held a small garden party with the fantastic Rod Hack providing some brilliant music. The weather almost put a stop to their fun, but luckily it just about managed to hold off pouring down until they had finished and gone inside.
The finale was a 100 question quiz - a mighty challenge for anyone! Residents fought bravely through the questions, including a picture round, musical round and the usual general knowledge. The winning team was ‘Stuffins & Spellers,’ who are proud to win their trophy.
If you fancy a go, look out for their next pub quiz.
