Activities at Collingtree Park Care Home

We started our Chinese New Year celebrations by making our own lanterns. In the afternoon, one of our lovely housekeeping staff members shared with the residents her story of going to China on a charity walk a few years ago. We talked about the Chinese traditions and superstitions they believe bring you good luck. The day was finished up with a delicious Chinese-themed dinner with fortune cookies and a ‘red envelope’ for good luck.

Residents are always keen to help out around the home and love getting involved with everyday activities, such as folding the laundry, matching socks, setting the table for meals and even helping out housekeeping with a spot of dusting.

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.