Activities at Derham 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.
We understand that the people we support have passions and interests that could be difficult to pursue after moving into a care home – but that doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to try! Some hobbies can define a person, so our Activities Coordinators are dedicated to ensuring that everyone we support is able to do what makes them happy to the best of their abilities. Social events are organised with individual tastes in mind and with the idea that residents have the opportunity to try new and exciting things.
Kay Thompson
I have worked in the care sector for many years. I am fully trained in dementia awareness, and I have also trained as a dignity champion. I have been working here at Derham House since March 2019, and I am really enjoying my role here.
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 Derham House Care Home
Poptastic
The methods and mediums may change but the heart of live music - the communal joy, the shared emotions, the collective energy - remains untouched.
Our Residents enjoyed a visit from Brandon Ambrose who got hands clapping, toes tapping and even Kay the Activities co-ordinator jiving.
One of the cornerstones of our life enrichment program is live musical entertainment. Resident involvement in choosing genres along with feedback after each performance means that we are able to constantly improve our activities calendar.
Derham Cyclethon
Derham House Neon Warriors cycled 119 miles on an exercise bike raising money for Barchester's Charitable Foundation, it's the equivalent to riding to Thornham in Norfolk and that's a long way from Upminster.
Residents, Derham House Team lead by Sharon Osborne the General Manager teamed up and took turns to complete the 119 miles in a day. The money raised will be donated to the Barchester Charitable Foundation.
Barchester’s Charitable Foundation is a registered charity that helps older people and adults with a disability across the U.K. The focus is about connecting or re-connecting people with others in their local community, and the foundation support applications that combat loneliness and enable people to be active and engaged.
Quackers
Animal therapy is one of the cornerstones of our life enrichment program and features regularly on our resident-led weekly activity planner at Derham House.
This week our friends from Performing Pets were back. As it was the first day of spring what better way to celebrate with chicks and ducklings bringing joy to our residents faces, spending one to one time in their rooms and also on both communities.
Residents at Derham House love animal therapy sessions that our dedicated Activities Team organise. As one of the foundations of our Life Enrichment program, we know that animal therapy can help reduce blood pressure and improve overall cardiovascular health.
A trip to the Theatre
At Derham House we support and encourage our residents to continue doing the things they love whilst also making new friends and exploring new adventures.
Our Residents had a great time when we took a trip to the Queen's Theatre. Everyone was singing, dancing and toe tapping to some great entertainers performing at a "Down Memory Lane" show for people living with dementia we even had a lovely cuppa tea and biscuits.
Supporting residents to enjoy outings, shopping, meals out and other trips is a key aspect of the weekly activities calendar.
Welsh Clogging in Essex?
National celebrations and family-friendly events are just some of the ways that we ensure the residents at Derham House remain connected with their loved ones and the wider community.
In celebration of St David's Day, we were joined by the talented Ella Brown who performed some traditional Welsh Clogging.
The dance was originally performed by farmers and slate quarry workers and often came in form of a competition where dancers would show off their stamina and athleticism. Our Residents enjoyed the performance clapping and tapping to the music.
Enable!
We are finally paper free! Enable is here.
For the last few weeks, our transport team at Derham House have been working hard transferring all our original care plans from paper to Enable's online system.
Staff have finally got their hands on a device that has all our residents in one place. It’s a little confusing and we constantly have our torches on but give it a few days and it will be like we have always had Enable. We can continue to deliver the highest premium care to all our residents.
