Activities at Henford 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.
Our Activities Coordinators are constantly striving to mentally and physically stimulate those we support by organising group and individual activities for anyone and everyone to participate in, as well as visits from PAT dogs, musicians and entertainers. We also host evenings such as our cheese & wine nights, pub evening, quiz nights and special occasions such as, Guy Fawkes, Easter and Christmas where we like to encourage relatives to come to. Activities are one of the most important aspects of a care home, so it is essential that our team are dedicated to ensuring that residents are entertained, and that life at Henford House is fun and active.
Debbie Phillips
I joined Henford House in March 2014; after five and a half years of domiciliary care, this position became available at Henford and I decided that it would be great to do more of the fun things in life with residents! It is great here at the home; we get along so well and truly have some laughs. Residents have a wide range of activities to participate in each week, including armchair exercises, bingo sessions, singalongs, musical entertainment, pottery, manicures, celebrations and much more. It is very rewarding knowing that people are grateful for the work I've done when I go. Working here has also given me the opportunity to gain my Level 2 NAPA certificate.
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 Henford House Care Home
Remembrance Day Commemoration
Henford House residents and staff have always been quite passionate about Remembrance Sunday. As a military town, over the years we have been lucky to share the service with some of the soldiers and Royal British Legion and the residents have enjoyed their company over lunch.
Rev Lorraine Dobbins and Eva Burton from Christ Church have always delivered a wonderful service which means so much to many of our residents and can be quite emotional for some of them.
A remembrance parade takes place through the town on the Sunday afternoon and the Royal British Legion are very busy counting the money made through the sale of poppies for two days after the parade, so we aim to organise the service for them to be able to attend.
Unfortunately, no soldiers could attend this year's service, but we were delighted to have members of the Royal British Legion join us for service and they joined the residents for lunch.
Baby and Toddler Group
Henford House baby and toddler group has really taken off since it started in August.
The residents find it so delightful to watch the little tots playing with the toys and swaying to the music and interacting with each other. The mums are also enjoying it, bringing the little ones together to play with each other, and be able to chat together.
The residents say it brings the home alive and brings so much joy. They find the little ones amusing and we think the toddlers are just as amused visiting the older generation too. We are pleased it is continuing to grow with new mums each month.
Alpaca Adventure
Wendy, from Alpaca Adventure, brought Alfie and Bruno in to Henford House to visit us all.
What an amazing afternoon it was, these wonderful animals got up close to our residents allowing them to stroke their necks.
They spent some time in the lounge with the residents before heading off to do room visits, they walked beautifully along the corridors and even enjoyed a ride in the lift.
Room visits continued and Alfie took a shine to the budgies in one of the resident's rooms, which was very amusing to watch.
Before saying goodbye, Wendy had brought in a selection of Alpaca merchandise which made lovely gifts so the residents and staff were able to buy some items if they wished to.
Macmillan Fundraising Afternoon
This year we had a fund raising afternoon for Macmillan, previous years we have held a coffee morning inviting the community.
The idea was to have a relaxed afternoon indulging delicious homemade cakes washed down with tea or coffee and sit back and enjoy Jane Bennett performing a great song list.
Posters and invites went out to the community and we were very pleased to welcome visitors in.
This charity is very close to many hearts and everyone donated generously by purchasing cakes and entering a small raffle.
It was a jolly afternoon with some singing along and tapping their toes to the music and we were really pleased to announce to everyone that just in the space of a couple hours we had raised over £200, and everyone applauded.
Donation to Wiltshire Air Ambulance
Residents at Henford House were thrilled to be able to visit the Wiltshire Air Ambulance based in Semington recently, where we handed over a welcomed donation.
The donation was from the proceeds of Henford's annual summer garden party, and although that was quite some time ago, we had to wait for a slot to attend the volunteers at the base. The the day finally came and unfortunately, the weather was not on our side. Even though it rained, everyone was still very enthusiastic about the trip.
The volunteers greeted us all and kindly took everyone on a tour. It was wonderful to get up close to the aircraft and get some lovely photographsy. It was also quite an emotional visit too, as one of the residents told a story about the air ambulance saving his daughter's life following a horse accident.
The volunteers and the pilot Elvis, educated us all about the daily operations of calls outs and answered any questions the residents had.
The residents then handed over the donation of £717 which was greatly appreciated.
Out and About on a mission
It is always great for the residents to get out and about in the community, to experience life outside the home, sometimes the residents loved ones make arrangements to meet us at the destination so they can join in, which we really encourage. General manger Trish asked the residents if they would mind taking on the task of finding 2 new plants with pots for the homes main entrance, the residents were delighted to be given this task and looked forward to visiting our local garden centre. Everyone loves to visit the café to enjoy the delicious cakes with tea and coffee. The sun was shining and the residents watched the ducks having a swim on the lake. Then they went on a mission as a group looking at different plants and pots, a decision was finally made and everyone was happy. The plants are on display now and the residents feel proud of their purchase!
