Westwood HouseBarchester Healthcare

Activities at Westwood House Care Home

Name: Westwood House Care Home
Address: 9 Westwood Hill,, Sydenham, SE26 6BQ, GB
Telephone: 020 3811 1326

As Activity Coordinator at Westwood House I am fully committed to organising activities for all of the residents. This includes activities within the home such as reminiscence sessions, and planning events such as the Summer and Christmas parties. We have also provided some very successful trips out to local places of interest in our minibus and have monthly visits from entertainers and musicians. We are always encouraging local schools to get involved and have recently managed to get a local charity 'Spare tyre' working with us very successfully.

It is important to me that each individual who we support can get as much from these as possible, so we try our best to arrange activities that reflect their interests and capabilities as best as possible, and encourage them to participate in any way they can. We also encourage relatives to join with activities and events as often as they can.

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

Read our brochure

Liz Wickers

Lifestyle Coordinator

As a Lifestyle Coordinator at a Barchester care home, I help to create a stimulating environment that enables us to deliver exceptional all-around care and support for our residents. Our ethos is all about celebrating life, so I devise imaginative, fun and motivational events and activities that suit every interest and ability.

I ensure that I spend time getting to know all of our residents and their families, to ensure a personalised and tailored activities programme, focusing on maximizing everyone’s well-being, independence and social engagement.

Celebrating life at Westwood House Care Home

Let's get physical

We understand the importance of staying active for both physical and mental health so here at Westwood House we do try to stay as active as we can whilst having fun.

Today we played chair rugby, tennis and football. Lots of laughter and boundless energy as residents and staff got quite competitive.

Perfect pancakes!

Our wonderful and talented Chef, Nana, hosted a pancake afternoon where residents had the opportunity to make the 'Perfect Pancake'.

Nana enjoys spending time with the residents and helping them to create and recall memories.

The residents all chose syrup as their topping and made enough for each resident to be offered this delicious treat. We are very much looking forward to our next master's class and can't wait to see what we are doing next.

Abracadabra!

A wonderful afternoon being entertained by Amigo the magician.

Our minds were boggled with his array of magic tricks and illusions, from card tricks to pulling a rabbit from his hat. Amazing!

You make me feel so young!

The effect that babies and toddlers can have on us is incredible. When Tappy Toes come to visit we find ourselves in amongst all sorts of fun. Today we rocked out in the jungle!

Intergenerational activities are invaluable to the elderly and those living with dementia, improving both mental and physical well-being.

We truly are blessed to have this wonderful group join us.

Westwood House Does Bake Off!

Two members of our team, Suresh and Divya, took part in a bake-off competing against each other. Suresh made a wonderful chocolate, zesty cake whilst Divya baked cookies. Residents and staff got to sample each and score their preference and our lovely relative Pat chose the overall winner.

We are pleased to announce that Divya just pipped Suresh to the post. Well done to both of them.
Congratulations to Divya, the proud winner of ‘The Wooden Spoon’.

Fabulous fashion

An absolute delight to delve into fashions throughout the years, from a 160 year old dress to rare pink Mary Quant Clogs. Such stunning and classy outfits and of course we just had to try some on.

A big thank you to Renia from Handling History for reminiscing and making more memories with us.

Christmas Flower Arranging

The staff and residents got together, and with the help of Nigel, a local florist, we created our fabulous Christmas Table Toppers.

Enjoying a glass of fizz whilst creating such beautiful arrangements was the perfect way to spend the morning.

Christmas joy

Peter entertained us today with a wonderful morning of Christmas songs that we all sang along to too. A wonderful mix of modern songs and songs from the past kept us belting out the tunes.

We are so ready for Christmas and this has really got us in the festive spirit.

Remembering the heroes

Today we spent a wonderful and emotive morning learning and handling objects from WWI and WWII. So many objects to learn about and understand why and what they were used for.

Thank you to Renia for sharing some beautiful stories and really got us thinking about life in wartime.

How wonderful?!

We spent the afternoon creating wonderful pieces using coffee, tea and water colours. The artists from the V & A museum supported us in understanding how we could use natural resources to create stunning works of art.

We came away full of confidence, joy and lots of laughter!

Intergenerational group

At Westwood House we welcome all members of the community to join us for events, activities and dining. We are so fortunate to have 'Tappy Toes baby and toddler group join us for a morning of dancing and fun.

The resident's love engaging and joining in with the young ones, from using props and dressing up as we dance along together. Tappy Toes joins us twice a month. If you would like to come and join us please call ahead for dates and times.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The staff at Westwood House performed "The Twelve Days of Christmas" for the residents and relatives on Christmas Eve.

We sang our hearts out with plenty of dancing and we had a real blast.

Lots of fun, laughter and fizz!

All creatures great and small

Many thanks to Zoolab for teaching us all about wonderful creatures. The residents are ever so brave holding and stroking them whilst the staff hide behind the sofas.

Our world is abundant with creatures and animals, and to be able to meet just a few of them is incredible.

Halloween fun

We had a wonderful afternoon dancing, singing and being entertained by Becky. Listening to all things spooky really brought the Halloween atmosphere.

Lots of spooky fun and laughter to be had, and copious amounts of treats.

'Tappy Toes' Dance Class

Today we began our wonderful dance class with the class of ‘Tappy Toes’ such an absolute pleasure to have Alex and the children come and visit.

Alex and her class will be joining us fortnightly. This is a wonderful intergenerational event and we absolutely love sharing the morning having fun with the babies and toddlers.