October was filled with pumpkin spice and all things nice

Throughout October our residents have been tricking and treating whilst dressing up their homes for the Autumn season.

During October, our residents have been taking part in various activities including a pumpkin growing competition, autumnal walks and organising awareness days in their homes.

World Mental Health Day

Our teams celebrated World Mental Health Day in a variety of meaningful ways this month.

At our Otterburn care home in Birmingham, colleagues took ten minutes out of their busy day to have a cup of tea, chocolate bar and a read of a well-being magazine donated by Carehome life.

Kavanagh Place care home in Liverpool held a team bonding day where colleagues played games like little hands, Jenga and ship wrecked. They also played the human knot, where colleagues had to unravel themselves without letting go of each other.

Havenmere care home in Immingham, Lincolnshire came together with their residents to make worry boxes in celebration of World Mental Health Day. The boxes were placed on each unit so people can write down their worries and our care home colleagues can do their best to help.

Marmaduke care home in Hull introduced their Mental Health Bear, for colleagues and service users to cuddle or carry around. Our Activities Team said “Our bear, named cuddles, has worked wonders for staff morale and our dementia residents have really taken to the bear.”

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Many of our homes participated in Macmillan’s Biggest Coffee Morning to raise funds for the charity.

Some of our homes, including Yarningdale based in Ripley, baked their own goodies to sell and raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

National Poetry Day

At our Parkside care home in Tipton, residents had a poetry writing workshop with their Activities Team.

Stephen and Sue from Parkside had some help writing poems about their care home.

Halloween fun

Our residents took great pride in decorating their homes for Halloween!

Parkside residents got stuck in with making some of their own decorations to display in their home, including a life-sized coffin!

Copperfields care home in Leeds hosted a costume party where winners received certificates, a small prize and a rosette!

At our Dearnevale care home in Barnsley, residents participated in a flower arranging workshop with an Autumn twist, using some carved out pumpkins as their vases.

Quarryfields care home in Doncaster hosted a Halloween themed treasure hunt around the homes grounds for residents to take part in, they all received prizes throughout and at the end.

Pumpkin growing competition

Earlier this year, we sent out pumpkin seeds to each of our homes and challenged them to grow the biggest pumpkin by November.

As well as growing the largest pumpkin from scratch, we gave homes some other categories to enter into, including:

• Biggest pumpkin
• Quirkiest pumpkin
• Best carved pumpkin
• Special recognition award.

We received some amazing entries from all homes, here are the overall winners:

Biggest pumpkin – Kingfisher View care home in Castleford

Quirkiest pumpkin – Meadowcroft care home in Sutton-in-Ashfield

Best carved pumpkin – Yarningdale care home in Ripley

Best carved pumpkin – Longley Park View care home in Sheffield

Special recognition – St Andrew’s Court care home in Hull

Service user engagement at Exemplar Health Care

At Exemplar Health Care, we encourage people to take part in like to organise and facilitate activities that are meaningful to our residents and that they’d like to get involved in.

We’re always looking for fun and caring people to join our growing team, if you think you’d be a good fit at Exemplar Health Care, you can visit our online job search to find a role near you.

If you’d like to know more about working with us, download our recruitment brochure.