Activities at Collingtree Park Care Home

Music is a very powerful emotional tool that can boost confidence and ease agitation, anxiety and distressing behaviour. Music can also be used to create or enhance a mood; it has enormous potential, so it’s only natural that we try and make music part of everyday life here at Collingtree Park, from the music we listen to throughout meal times to the background music during other activities.

We also have many talented residents in the home and encourage them to share their skills with everyone as often as possible. Recently, the ladies sat down, relaxed and enjoyed listening to one of our talented residents play the piano, which could be heard across the home.

We love baking cakes and talking about our favourite things to make in the kitchen. During our most recent baking session, we were joined by two mini volunteers, who seemed to love it just as much as we do!

Here at Collingtree Park, we are very lucky to have such a beautiful home. However, we had one room on our Memory Lane community that hadn’t been used for anything for two whole years. We decided this room needed to be giving back to the residents, so we sat down, brain-stormed ideas and we talked about the concept of making a common and familiar village surrounding for dementia residents.

Our main aim for the 'Village Life Project' was to create an indoor village that the residents could use whenever they liked. We included a post office and a post box, as well as a desk with letters and stamps. Our village also has a glamorous clothing shop corner with dresses, shoes, hats and bags.

The main attraction of this project is our ‘tea room’ – residents can sit and enjoy afternoon tea and cake in the beautiful vintage-style tea room that overlooks the golf course which surrounds the home.

We created this village by re-purposing items that were no longer in use within the home. We also went on a few shopping trips to charity shops to look for china cups, saucers and tea pots, which can be seen on display in the room.

From the 1st March and the first Thursday of each month thereafter, the village room will be hosting our Memory Café for friends, relatives and anyone in the community who would benefit from talks, activities and small training sessions based around our person-centred approach to dementia care.

So why not come along and experience a welcoming environment with support and advice from like-minded carers, friends and family members?

The scene was set: there were tables laden with party hats, poppers and blowers, everyone was dressed in their best and excited for a fabulous evening. After enjoying a delicious buffet, the music and dancing began. We danced the night away, then Big Ben chimed and we raised a toast and welcomed in 2018 with a noisy rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

A Christmas outing to the local Garden centre was thoroughly enjoyed. After tea and scones in the café, we perused the centre, looking for Christmas decorations and gift ideas whilst listening to the Christmas carols. Many purchases were made and everyone was happy and in high festive spirits.

We rocked around the Christmas tree with a resident favourite, Johnny Red. Everyone was dancing the night away, eating, drinking and being merry as we anticipated the arrival of Father Christmas.