Kings ParkBarchester Healthcare

Activities at Kings Park Care Home

Activities are an integral part of life at our care home. We want to ensure that the people we support have as much fun as possible during their time with us, so it’s important that our activities programme is created with the interests of residents in mind. Our skilled Activities Coordinators bring a certain uniqueness to the home that can’t be found anywhere else, and which is reflected in the activities they organise.

Read our brochure ‘Life-enriching activities’ for more information about life in our care homes.

Read our brochure

Angela Cawsey

Activities Lead

Hello, I am Angela the Activities Lead.

I am delighted to be part of the team at Kings Park after a transferring from a sister home in Salisbury, following my relocation to this area.

With experience in this role, my passion is bringing joy to our residents, whether on a one-to-one basis or in groups. I love getting to know each resident and incorporating their interests into engaging, meaningful activities and events that nurture the mind, body and spirit to enhance their well-being and life enrichment at our home. Making people smile is what I do best!

During lockdown, I ran daily Zoom sessions for well-being, including bingo and quizzes. When my children were young I volunteered as a helper at Boys Brigade and St John's Ambulance which was very rewarding. I love being a Grandma, music, crafts, the outdoors and animals - I have just started a new hobby of wild swimming with friends.

Celebrating life at Kings Park Care Home

Veteran's Lunch

This week we held a special Veterans lunch. We hosted 8 local Veterans who joined us for a delicious three course meal prepared by our wonderful Head Chef and kitchen team.

It was great to see everyone sharing stories and experiences, laughing and reminiscing. We wanted to share our thanks with the wider community and we will continue to do so with more events like this soon. Thank you to everyone who attended, it was a pleasure to have you as our guests.

Wessex Rotary Shoebox Scheme

This year the residents, families and staff at Kings Park have taken part in this scheme to support disadvantaged children.

' The scheme collects and sends shoeboxes filled with gifts to disadvantaged children in Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, and Ukraine (via Poland), ensuring they receive them in time for Christmas. These special packages are prepared using specific card boxes provided by Wessex Rotary, with guidelines available to support people in assembling and filling the boxes.

The scheme categorises the contents of the boxes based on the gender and age of the child recipient.

Last year, 18,000 boxes were sent from their warehouse in Christchurch, spreading joy among children, including refugees from Ukraine in Poland.'

We have been delighted to help this year. Thank you so much to Alison from Ferndown & Parley Rotary who helped us to set this up and came to collect the boxes last week! Also a huge thank you to all who donated a box!

Autumn Walks and Pub Stops

Recently, some of our residents went for a refreshing Autumn walk through Ferndown.

The walk wouldn’t have been complete without a pit stop at The White Heather and a refreshing flavoured lemonade drink!

We were even able to say hello to some of our friends from the creative happiness club.

Precious Moments from our Community Café

We had a real treat at our last Community Café with a visit from The Creature Teachers. If you'd like to come along to the next one we meet here the 1st Thurs of every month at 10.30am-12pm and everyone is welcome.

A Beautiful Day

A lovely moment captured of our residents with family and friends enjoying refreshments together in our beautiful garden.

Golden Winners

We are beyond grateful and delighted that we have been awarded GOLD in not one but TWO categories at the Ferndown Biz Awards!

Today, Jenna May our General Manager and Jackie our Home Administrator went to the award ceremony along side many other fantastic businesses in Ferndown.

We had been nominated in two categories and we were ecstatic to be awarded Gold Winners for:

Best Place To Work
Outstanding Community Support

We want to thank everyone who nominated / voted for us and we are truly delighted to have received these awards.

A huge congratulations to all the other Winners in Ferndown, the community is made up from such a wonderful group of businesses that we are very proud to be part of.

The awards, supported by local sponsors including Ferndown Business Network - FBN, Purple Accountants and Plants and Minds Events and Fundraising celebrated enterprise, innovation and community spirit across the region.

Pet Therapy

We recently had a visit from our beautiful PAT dog, Umber, this week.

Umber visits from Helpful Hounds Assistance Dogs along with her owner Jane! she brings so much happiness to the home with her bouncy and excitable ways. The residents absolutely love seeing her and of course feeding her lots of treats!

We are already excited for their next visit!

Reading Books & Making Friends

We were delighted when the children from Ferndown First School came to visit us here at Kings Park recently.

The children read books to the residents, these included The Snowman and some Roald Dahl books too!

It was fantastic to see them bonding over their love of books and seeing them engage so beautifully together.

Thank you so much to the children and teachers for visiting us and we cant wait to welcome you again!

A Journey of Calm and Discovery

This week we welcomed Peaceful Pathways Dorset - Jane Scanlan who led us through a morning of true relaxation. We began with some gentle breathing before exploring fascinating instruments from around the world – including a rain drum, Tibetan singing bowls and even an African frog.

The soothing sounds were so calming that one of our residents even drifted off into a peaceful nap. Everyone enjoyed having a go, asking lots of questions, soaking up the atmosphere.

To end our journey, Jane treated us to a hand massage session, the perfect way to round off a tranquil morning.

Happy National Dog Day!

This day was all about our four-legged friends here in Ferndown and what a paw-some day it’s been! We’d love to see your furry friends too – pop a photo in the comments!

We had the joy of welcoming Carrot, the cuddly Jackadoodle belonging to our Activities Lead Angela, and Joey, the cheeky Staffy cross owned by our Maintenance chap Bernie. Both pups were absolutely showered with love – plenty of strokes, cuddles, and a few sneaky treats from our residents! To round things off, a game of Doggy Bingo!

Here’s to all the wonderful dogs (and their owners!) who brighten our days.

Tea for Two

We had a lovely trip to The Beacon Café at St. Mary's Ferndown this week!

Our residents here at Kings Park enjoy the welcoming people, the warm atmosphere and of course the delicious tea at the café.

It is a wonderful place for the community to come and we enjoy ourselves every time we visit!

Congratulation's Bernie!

We are extremely proud that our Head of Maintenance, Bernie has been crowned 'Head of Maintenance for the South West' at Barchester Healthcare.

Yesterday, along with our General manager Jenna and Regional Director Barbara, Bernie joined winners from across the UK at a special awards event to celebrate their outstanding achievements and see if they’ve won a national award.

The residents and team back at King's Park watched in anticipation, enjoying the awards ceremony live. We were elated to see Bernie there and loved cheering him on all together!

Over 5,250 incredibly high-standard nominations were received this year and although he didn't win the national award, we are beyond proud that Bernie is the Winner for the South West Division, a fantastic and well-deserved achievement! Congratulations Bernie!

A trip to the Garden Centre

Our residents recently enjoyed an afternoon in the sun when they went on their trip out to Wimborne Garden Centre and Maidenhead Aquatics. We took our time to amble around, smell the flowers and watch the fish!

We are looking for our next trip already, keep a look out to see where we go! ...

Cue the Fun

Eric and Bert love a good game of snooker, it’s the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Even our maintenance man, Bernie couldn’t resist!

Pamper Afternoon

This afternoon some of our ladies enjoyed a relaxing hand pamper with manicures leaving them feeling refreshed and polished