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
International Dot Day
There are many awareness days in the calendar; International Dot Day is one of these. If we were still able to have visits from the school children, we would have worked with them, but as they are not physically here, we held our own Dot Day.
We read Peter H. Reynolds' tale ‘The Dot’, which is about making a mark and seeing where it takes you. At Kernow, many of us made our mark on muffin cases and we then made this collage. We will write to the children and show them what we did – that way we still keep in touch.
Board Games
Many residents enjoy playing board games and we have increased the amount and variety of board games we have in the home. There is a chess champion amongst the residents and, although many have tried, he has never been defeated. Connect Four and dominoes are firm favourites, but we also enjoy word searches, quizzes and lots of other games.
Kernow Cruise
Our Head Chef, Dan, entered a cook off as he has won the divisional Chef of the Year and is now competing for the national event. He organised a themed three course lunch with pre-dinner Prosecco and called the event ‘Kernow Kruise’. It was a whole home event with both staff and residents taking part and both the food and the lovely atmosphere of anticipation and celebration was enjoyed throughout the home.
Embracing Technology
We have two tablets, which we using for Skype calls with friends and relatives. There are so many other things we can use a tablet for, so we enjoy virtual museum tours, Sudoku games and concerts, but the most popular use is to sit comfortably and relax while listening to and watching a YouTube video of a favourite singer. It’s like having your own private concert!
Our Divisional Winners
Congratulations to Sue Carlisle, who has been named as a Divisional Winner in the 2020 Barchester Care Awards. Sue is a finalist in the Volunteer of the Year category, and has been invited to attend a virtual awards ceremony on 8th October, where she will find out if she has won overall.
Also, well done to Dan Hill, who was named as a Divisional Winner in the Chef of Year category.
Virtual Wimbledon
We have been watching tennis on television and on a tablet from previous Wimbledons. We call ‘virtual Wimbledon’, because the real event isn’t happening this year. Never mind! This way we can suit ourselves and watch whenever we like. We have had Pimm's and lots of quizzes along with Wimbledon facts. We also got our tennis balls out to play a little ourselves.
