Meet our Activities Coordinator, Ruth Welsh

My role is to organise and plan the activities for all of the residents at Westwood. I enjoy getting to know people and finding out about their families, background and interests and then I try to plan relevant activities around this information. I work closely with the caring team also.

Activities at Westwood House

As Activity Coordinator at Westwood House I am fully committed to organising activities for all of the residents. This includes activities within the home such as reminiscence sessions, and planning events such as the Summer and Christmas parties. We have also provided some very successful trips out to local places of interest in our minibus and have monthly visits from entertainers and musicians. We are always encouraging local schools to get involved and have recently managed to get a local charity 'Spare tyre' working with us very successfully.

It is important to me that each individual who we support can get as much from these as possible, so we try our best to arrange activities that reflect their interests and capabilities as best as possible, and encourage them to participate in any way they can. We also encourage relatives to join with activities and events as often as they can.

Life at Westwood House Care Home

Attending Assembly

Every Friday since the 6th November, we have been very lucky to be invited to join in the weekly school assembly at St James the Great Primary and Nursery School.

Residents John, Jean, Phyllis and Stella (General Manager) and Joanne (Home Administrator) all joined via Zoom.

St James children have been sending us pictures and cards throughout the lockdown to cheer us all up and have been keeping us all in their prayers.

We were very honoured to be able to participate in this special assembly, which was to commemorate Armistice Day. The assembly was attended by Fusilier Cpl Dan Yiannadji and his colleague who read out a very moving poem to the whole school. The Head Teacher Mr Andrew encouraged the children to ask lots of questions of the soldiers and we were all very impressed by how well behaved and how thoughtful the children all were.

We were all very pleased at how many certificates were awarded to the children during assembly too-the children obviously all work very hard and make great efforts in their school work.

We thank Mr Chris Andrew (Head teacher), Mr Martin Ruddy (Deputy Head) and Mrs Nicole Mezzela for arranging this amazing opportunity and for arranging all the cards and pictures for us too.

Nicole Mezzela & Barbara Parfitt delivered a huge amount of goodies to us this week from the children who raised money to but the goodies, We were showered with biscuits, chocolates, some beautiful poinsettias for each floor and a beautiful handmade Christmas card for every resident in the home. We are so grateful for this lovely donation-everyone was truly delighted.

Thank you again St James and we look forward to joining you all again very soon.

Our New Visiting Pod

On Thursday 3rd December, our visiting suite was in use for the first ever time. The first visit was very successful, with lots of really positive feedback. The family really enjoyed their visit with their daughter and complimented us on how well the appointments were managed, how easy the booking system was to navigate and how the suite was so welcoming on their arrival. Overall, a very positive visit!

Christmas Preparations

On Friday 4th December, Celia, one of our Carers, spent a lovely day helping our residents decorating the home ready for Christmas. The tree above is the one that the visitors in our Visiting Suite can see. John and Sue then decided to have a quiz and they had a really interesting one about the Royal family with a Christmas theme.

Making Pasta

Residents had a lovely afternoon making pasta with a pasta making machine. They made with an extra special filling. The pasta was cooked and eaten that evening for supper, and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

General Manager, Stella Bernatek, also talked to them to explain how it would have been made in rural Italy and how the matriarchs of the homes would have sat outside in the streets in the baking sun with their pasta making boards in front of them and they would have chatted and laughed while making beautiful wholesome meals for their families.

Pen Pals

This is a photo of Jean, who is enjoying writing a reply to some of our pen pals at St James the Great and Sydenham High Schools. She also wrote a lovely letter of thanks to St James the Great for the effort the young children have made. Head teacher, Chris Andrew, keeps the card on his desk at school and shares it with the children in assembly.