Activities at The Fernes Care Home
At The Fernes we endeavour to make our care as personal as possible, including when it comes to activities. We will give you a 'Getting to Know Me' booklet for you to fill out with your loved one before they arrive, which includes a little life history and a tick sheet for a vast amount of activities. This enables us to offer the activities we know they will enjoy and enables us to learn valuable information about their lives and what might stimulate them in conversations and trips.
Our specialist Activities and Lifestyle staff make sure there are always meaningful activities to take part in, such as helping in the garden, baking some bread to have with our dinner, and trips out to various locations nearby such as the beach and the garden centres. Residents are encouraged to take part, but it is always the resident’s choice to participate or not as we believe that having choice is very important to help our residents feel in control of their lives. There are activities on offer every day (and night for those night owls) in the form of word puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, arts and crafts, needle crafts and board games to name a few. We have entertainment that is organised at least twice a month such as Music for Health, Zoolab or musicians, and also have a wonderful Yoga instructor who comes every other week.
Activities are provided by everyone in our home from carers and specialised activities staff, right through to our admin team. If there is a task that needs doing and a resident would like to do it, such as sealing envelopes and putting stamps on or handing out popcorn for our Movie Mondays, they are very welcome to help out which enables us to give them a better feeling of purpose and self-worth.
We are a registered member of the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA), which means that we are always working to make the quality of life of all of our residents as high as possible by working with person-centred activities that aim to stimulate our residents, both mentally and physically.
Sophie Wasteney
Hi, I'm Sophie, I am the Activities Lead at The Fernes. I've worked in the care sector for 26 years and here at The Fernes for 3 of those. When I started here I worked in care so really got to know the residents, relatives and home very well. When the Activities Lead role arose I naturally jumped at the opportunity as it was one aspect of care I really wanted to do as I really enjoy making people happy. As you cannot put a price on a smile!
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 The Fernes Care Home
Frsh Fruit Smoothies
To celebrate nutrition and hydration week, we enjoyed a chance to design our own fresh fruit smoothies! We had some amazing concoctions, and they were loved by all residents and staff!
Exercise with Alice
Back by popular demand, Alice is hosting monthly exercise classes with resistance bands. Residents have really enjoyed this session, and can't wait for Alice to return next month.
Darts and Pool
Residents told us in their resident's meeting, that they would like to visit our local RNA to play some darts and pool - So, that's exactly what we did! The residents all had so much fun! It was so popular we will be going back every month.
A Visit from Zoolab!
Residents at The Fernes have enjoyed their first visit from the wonderful Zoolab. Everyone enjoyed meeting these creatures from snakes to African snails. It was great to have the chance to hold these creatures and to get up close with them.
Carol Night in Catisfield Memorial Hall
We headed over to our local memorial hall for a carol night with the community. One of our residents, Mike, read a festive poem before we were all treated to yummy mulled wine and mince pies. What a lovely Christmassy evening.
Barchester's 30th Anniversary Celebrations
Today we celebrated Barchester's 30th Anniversary with a big party! The Fernes favourite singer Alice provided her usual fantastic entertainment which we all enjoyed along with some yummy cake and cocktails.
