Activities at Austen House Care Home
Our teams are trained to enrich the lives of residents through stimulating the mind, body and soul, and taking the time to learn about each person to ensure everyone receives support that adds enrichment to their life.
Here at Austen House, we like to get to know those we support, and from the day of moving in, our activities team will spend time on an individual basis learning about interests, likes and dislikes, life history and favourite hobbies.
We provide a wide range of activities, from one-to-one time, manicures and board games, through to live entertainment, prize bingo and our ever-popular cheese & wine events. Our activities team will also tailor individual activities to ensure residents can have as much or as little involvement as they choose.
In the summer months, greater focus is given to outdoor activities, such as barbecues and garden parties. In conjunction with our Chef, themed events are planned throughout the year, bringing activities and food together.
In their pink polo shirts, our activities team are easily identifiable and embrace ideas and suggestions from residents and their relatives to ensure that the activities provided keep those we support engaged, stimulated and entertained.
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 Austen House Care Home
Celebrating 200 years of Cadbury
To mark Dementia Action Week, staff and residents at Austen House were delighted to be gifted beautiful branded memory boxes filled with retro Cadbury chocolate bars.
Also, we were treated to an afternoon of nostalgia and delicious memories when we were joined by Cadbury archivist Sarah Foden and Brand Manager Connor Gould for a talk from the nation’s favourite chocolate brand.
Our residents and teams came together for a heart-warming reminiscing activity to share memories and lovely stories.
Thanks to the generous support of Cadbury, we received a delightful surprise – memory bar boxes filled with Dairy Milk bars wrapped in designs reflecting Cadbury rich 200-year history.
We all had a great time while enjoyed some delicious sweet treats.
Out and About!
Residents and team members from Austen House were delighted to take a trip out to visit Henry Street Garden Centre. A family-owned and run, independent garden centre with a fabulous selection of plants and gardening products, there was so much to see and choose from. We selected some beauties to add to our gardens and after all that hard work residents relaxed in the cafeteria and enjoyed a lovely cup of tea/coffee and a delicious piece of cake.
Austen House organise regular minibus trips and our residents really enjoy finding new places to visit.
Cinco de Mayo!
Residents, family and team members at Austen House went loco celebrating Cinco de Mayo, a national day which celebrates freedom and liberty in Mexico and takes place on 5th May every year.
We watched videos of parades and celebrations in Mexico, travelled virtually to different historic sites in Mexico, including the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum, the beautiful coastline of Cancun and Mexico City itself.
We all enjoyed a brilliant Mexican party with Mariachi music and buffet of traditional Mexican food and drinks.
What a fun and colourful afternoon!
National Scrabble Day!
The home was in high spirits as we celebrated the day by organising a scrabble tournament.
The day finished finding out about Scrabble' s history and delicious afternoon treats, which brought smiles and laughter into the home.
Everyone enjoyed a game of Scrabble and some of our residents came up with new and improved ways to increase their letter and word scores. They have the most amazing vocabularies!
Simona Cioinac, General Manager at the home, said: “It has been a brilliant day and we have all enjoyed playing lots of Scrabble together, it is amazing what you learn when you get together round a Scrabble board. Our residents’ have wiped the floor with me which is no surprise – I really need to brush up my Scrabble skills!”
World Health Day!
We dedicated our day to promote the benefits of good health and wellbeing in recognition of World Health Day.
Our residents got involved in sensory and relaxing activities and fun-filled games, specially designed to improve and stimulate their physical health, as well as, mental wellbeing.
Also, we enjoyed a delicious fresh fruits tasting session and explored a number of exotic fruits, which some of the residents never tasted.
Trying new foods will do more than widen your horizons - it can help you eat healthier, introduce you to different cultures, and add more nutrients to your diet.
We all had a lovely time chatting about all the different textures and flavours and guessing where about in the world we thought they’d come from.
Holi Celebrations!
Holi is a fun-packed festival that marks the end of winter and the start of spring, it focuses on love and new life. Holi celebrates the Hindu god Krishna and the legend of Holika and Prahlad. One of the messier festivals, Holi is also known as the festival of colours and is celebrated by the throwing of colourful powder paint and coloured water along with singing and dancing.
Residents, families and the team at Austen House had an afternoon filled with fun activities like putting coloured power on each other and learning more about the festival of Holi as well as the meaning behind it, through a story. Later we all enjoyed variety of delicious sweets, snacks, a refreshing mango juice and milk- shakes.
We hope to inspire others to embrace and appreciate cultural diversity and we look forward to similar events in the future.
Mary, a resident at Austen House said: “It was so fantastic to see all of the beautiful colours of the Holi festivities, what a brilliant way to celebrate the arrival of spring – it made me so happy to see everyone having so much fun, and getting so messy!”
