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
Christmas Fancy Dress
The theme of our traditional Christmas Fancy Dress Competition was 'elves & fairies', but with a twist: ladies to dress as elves and gentlemen as fairies – and quite a few staff members joined in! This has become our way of wishing everyone a merry Christmas, and it always raises a smile.
Decorations Everywhere!
We have decided to bring the outside into Kernow House this Christmas. We have real Christmas trees on every unit and they both look and smell fantastic.
Paula, our Gardener, has made decorations to display everywhere in the home. Making these baskets has been a real team effort, as they were filled with compost by volunteer, Dave, who works with us every Friday; and they were decorated mostly by Paula, but with lots of interest from many people.
The pine cones used in the decorations were mainly picked up by residents out walking. We hope the decorations last and look good throughout the Christmas period.
Musical Memories
Ann Stott is a music teacher who visits us every month. Sometimes we sing together and talk about music or about whatever comes to our minds. Ann also works with some of the residents composing music with the use of an iPad. Through programmes downloaded on her iPad, residents can make tunes and see digital displays guided by Ann.
Christmas Cake Competition
It is a tradition at Kernow to hold an internal Christmas Cake competition and we then enter the winning cake into Barchester’s national competition. This year, we made the cakes during pop-up cafes and pictured are Marjorie and Alison busy mixing a cake each.
Eight cakes were then taken around the home and residents, staff and visitors voted for their favourite. This snowman cake won and the winning unit received a box of biscuits as a prize. Now we have to wait and see how well we do in Barchester’s competition, but more than anything, we look forward to eating the cakes!
Cracker
This is Cracker, who is a miniature Shetland pony. He came to visit us dressed as an angel and, although he is a fully grown pony, he seemed to enjoy dressing up. He certainly gave us a laugh and was the first to wish us all a happy Christmas.
Double Awards
December’s Employee of the Month for December was Activities Coordinator, Bea Porup, who was nominated by colleagues for always being happy and going out of her way to help, even if it's just with the washing up. Nothing is ever too much trouble and she has planned lovely Christmas activities for us all to enjoy.
Another special award in December also went to Kitchen Assitant, Sam Pooley, who just wanted a hug from our General Manager, Careen Harris, which she gratefully received.
