Activities at Red Oaks Care Home

Each year St Barnabas house is the hospice for the Henfield area. They support the local community, people with life-limiting illnesses and their loved ones. Care extends beyond the hospice and the team at St Barnabas support the community and us here at Red Oaks.

Wanting to say a huge thank and give something back to this worthy charity staff took park in the hospice's annual 'A night to Remember' walk a 7.5 mile night time walk around Worthing.

The Red Oaks team was led by our palliative care champions at Red Virginia and Sorina who bring there own expertise and knowledge at the home to residents and family members.

A lovely afternoon, with the opportunity for residents, family, friends and the community to come together and enjoy the sounds of proms from Brass Fusion drifting through the air whilst sitting in the sunshine in Red Oaks' beautiful gardens.

With strawberries & cream and Pimm's on the menu,  there was no better way to spend the day?

The afternoon was finished off by lots of flag waving singing the National anthem and Sussex by the sea.

Our home was buzzing with excitement on June 18th when music royalty, Dave Rowntree from blur, joined an intergenerational music therapy session hosted by Nordoff and Robbins, the UK’s largest music therapy charity. The fantastic team from Nordoff and Robbins are regular visitors to the home and their wonderful intergenerational sessions as part of Henfield Community Partnership are always loved by all the residents and members of the local community, however this one was at another level!

Nordoff and Robbins are hosting the O2 Silver Clef Awards on Friday 5 July where blur, one of the most iconic and enduring bands of the last three decades, will receive the O2 Silver Clef Award. The most prestigious award of the day, the O2 Silver Clef Award honours artists of the highest calibre who continue to impact the music industry with their outstanding careers and contribution to music.

O2 Silver Clef Award winners blur have been at the heart of British cultural life for over three decades. Since announcing their arrival with debut album Leisure in 1991, blur - Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree and Alex James – went on to revolutionise the sound of English popular music with six successive UK #1 albums.

The awards – now in their 48th year – raise vital funds for Nordoff and Robbins to support a wide range of children and adults. The charity’s trained music therapists enable connection and communication through music for some of the most vulnerable people in society.

In 2023, Nordoff and Robbins held nearly 50,000 vital music therapy sessions across the UK. Shaped by more than 60 years of practice, Nordoff and Robbins’ trained music therapists use the power of music to transform people’s lives by helping them to express themselves and connect with others. The charity works with children and adults at over 380 schools, hospitals, hospices and care homes, as well as providing sessions from its centres nationwide.

Dave Rowntree commented: “Today has been a truly magical experience, it really is what music is all about – connecting with people and seeing the transformative effect music has on their lives. It was fantastic to see how people’s faces lit up when they were playing and listening to the music. As a professional musician, you’re often quite far removed from seeing the real effect music has, either locked away in a studio or on a huge stage far from the crowd but seeing people’s faces up close has been absolutely wonderful. I hope to do lots more sessions like this, it has been so joyful. Thanks so much to everyone at Red Oaks for having me.”

Senior General Manager, Linda Ryan of Red Oaks said: “We always enjoy our wonderful Nordoff and Robbins music therapy sessions but we will definitely be talking about this one for some time to come! It is not very often we have actual pop royalty at Red Oaks! We have all loved having Dave come to visit us, it has been a fantastic day and we’re so very grateful to the talented Nordoff and Robbins team for all that they do for our residents. Their sessions are always amazing, they are every Tuesday 11am to 12 noon followed by our community choir session 3pm to 4pm and all are welcome to join.”

We had a lovely trip to Littlehampton to enjoy the sunshine yesterday afternoon.

A lovely walk along the river side and of course we also had to have some ice-cream.

Our trips out are important as it helps our residents to continue to feel engaged with the wider community. Residents can continue to enjoy activities and interests that they had before coming to Red Oaks.

Red Oaks was delighted to host  the Warren Playgroup in Henfield's sports Day in our beautiful garden. Many families and friends of the children joined us to watch the sports day and have a picnic on the lawn afterwards.

Residents cheered the children on interacting and congratulating everyone for taking part. Residents enjoyed being part of such a joyous occasion reminiscing of the many times that they had attended  different sports days of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Red Oaks is a fundamental part of Henfield’s Garden and Arts festival and this year was not any different welcoming many members of community to celebrate its award winning gardens.

With a full programme of music and many craft stalls and displays residents, families and the community intermingled and enjoyed the buzzing atmosphere.

This was the 25th years that Henfield gardens have opened on the second weekend in June and each year Red Oaks  participates. With the main purpose to to celebrate and promote the community and culture of West Sussex village of Henfield it was an extremely busy weekend with Red Oaks at the heart of it.