Activities at Kernow House Care Home
Our Activities Coordinators organise varied and regular events. The activities that take place depend on what our residents tell us they are interested in and the feedback we get from their families. We currently have pop-up cafes where we socialise and maybe visit the hairdresser. We have regular live music events, a storyteller and visits from animals and we are often joined by families or friends during our social activities where they are always most welcome.
Living in Cornwall the surrounding countryside offers many beauty spots and we often have trips out to wherever our residents would like to go. At other times a walk to nearby shops or cafes is what we enjoy.
Louise is our hairdresser and she is with us twice a week. Louise also supports us during our weekly Namaste sessions where she offers hand massages in a relaxing environment. Every Thursday afternoon we have a time of worship supported by our local community. Our ice cream van, Kernow Kones, and our mobile pub, Kernow Keg, also make a weekly appearance. We have monthly clubs, when we play bingo or watch a film in our pop-up cinema. Residents on all units are invited to take part in a monthly Resident’s Meeting and they tell us what they would like.
Apart from these regular events, we also celebrate special occasions and often have musical entertainers to visit but we also make our own fun. All staff take part in fancy dress or charity events that we support and often what we do evolves through interaction between residents and care or activity staff. All this makes Kernow House a vibrant place to be where things happen both as group activities as well as on an individual level.
Bea Porup
Bea has many years of experience working in elderly care and both experience and training in dementia care. She has also worked extensively with people with Huntington's disease. Bea works closely with Sue, Jackie and our management team, nurses, carers and kitchen team to ensure our home has a vibrant environment with lots of events happening and varied opportunities for having both new and familiar experiences, making sure the people living here lead a rich and fulfilling life.
Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure
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 Kernow House Care Home
Pen Pals
Before COVID-19 came along, we had weekly visits by children from the nearby St Catherine’s Primary School. They cannot visit at the moment, so we have established a pen pal scheme with them.
The children have sent us cards, drawings and letters. We have watched their nativity play on our tablets and enjoyed both seeing and hearing the children.
At the moment, class 4 is learning about farming in Cornwall, and they have written letters with lots of questions for us. We write back to them while we spend time chatting and reminiscing about farming or wherever our thoughts and memories take us.
Staff Performances
Christmas is fun and festive at Kernow, with regular staff performances. Reby, Jake, Joss and Luke formed a band and went on tour throughout the building singing Silent Night in several languages and playing all the good ol' Christmas songs. It was a real party atmosphere.
Activities staff told the Nativity story interspersed with poems, limericks, carols and pictures. They also had traditional Festival of Nine lessons and carols to candlelight on all units.
The last few days before Christmas will see secret Santa presents being delivered by an elf and, on Christmas Eve, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas' will be read by the old man in his pyjamas.
It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Christmas Cheer
We are not able to have entertainers indoors, so instead, we have hosted events in the car park.
Two reindeer called Nadelik and Lowen came to visit us. ‘Nadelik Lowen’ means Happy Christmas in Cornish. It was lovely to see the deer walk around with their handlers, scratch their antlers and come right up to the windows.
St Genny’s Silverband also came to visit in the car park. They played traditional carols, which could be heard and enjoyed throughout the entire home. Thank you for helping us bring Christmas to Kernow.
Getting Ready for Christmas
We are counting down to Christmas, making Christmas cakes, wrapping presents for our Secret Santa, writing cards and doing lots of Christmassy things.
The residents have told us that, for some, Christmas can’t come early enough, but for others, it can be a difficult time of the year, so we strike a happy medium and build up slowly.
Everyone can choose to which extent they want to get involved in the Christmas preparations, and from mid-December, we will bring in the decorations and really make it festive everywhere.
Brave The Shave
Recently, we raised money for Macmillan with a sale, a raffle and a coffee morning, but Caroline Rowe, who lives at Kernow House thought, she could do something herself for the charity.
Caroline has seen the adverts on television, when Macmillan ask for donations, and came up with the idea of having her head shaved in order to raise money for the charity.
Caroline ‘Braved The Shave’ and raised £339. She is pictured having her head shaved by Brooke Moor, who came in during his holiday to do the honours. Well done, Caroline! You are inspirational and very brave!
Remembrance Sunday
In the week leading up to Remembrance Sunday, we were busy painting poppies on stones. We took part in a community project organised by Launcestones! The stones were placed on the war memorial in town and will eventually be hidden around Launceston for people to find, when out walking.
We also decorated our wheelbarrow to make our own Remembrance garden and we took the garden around the home, so everyone could see it along with a poppy wreath. When we watched the ceremony from the Cenotaph, a resident laid the wreath virtually on the memorial. It was very emotional.
