Remembrance Day can be a hugely emotional and poignant time for many people, especially in our elderly homes where a number of our residents are veterans themselves.
Each home was provided with a Remembrance Day activity pack including wordsearches, colouring in pages and crosswords on the subject.
All of our homes are actively encouraged to personalise our group projects to their service and likes of their resident group, which means we see a wide-range of brilliant and unique ideas which we are overjoyed to be able to share with you.
Here's a few examples of how some of our homes celebrated Remembrance Day 2021!
At The Haven Care Home our new Activity Coordinator Flo has been busy at work getting all the preperations done for their in-house memorial service which took place at 11am.
Our residents and staff observed the 2 minute silence, amidst a backdrop of Remembrance themed art they had been making in the lead up to November 11th.
Flo and the resident group created a beautiful piece of art covered in poppies and they even created a special memorial tree for the residents we have lost. We think this is an amazing idea to show that even when a resident passes on, they are always part of the Black Swan family.
Our residents at Park House were lucky enough to attend the Great Yarmouth Borough Council's Remembrance Day memorial service.
They were joined by members of their local community and were treated to a live performance by a brass band who marked the occasion by playing a selection of remembrance songs, including The Last Post.
Joined by staff and their loved ones, they took part in the two minute sillence alongside their local community, with our resident veterans proudly displaying their medals from their time serving, with pride and honour.
If you would like the chance to virtually join our residents and relive the experience you can visit the Great Yarmouth Borough Council Youtube page by clicking here, showing the full service.
At The Gables Care Home our residents started getting ready for this poignant event early, by creating their own individual paper poppies to create their own installation art piece in the home.
Residents did an amazing job crafting their paper flowers, and with a little help from Activities Coordinator Lorna Jones they were able to make them cascade down our living room wall for all of our residents and staff to enjoy.
On November 11th Registered Manager Julie Tyler created an amazing donation point to raise money for The Poppy Appeal, alongside a display of crosses bearing the names of residents no longer with us and a genuine military uniform in the homes entrance.
Chef Heath Brown also took the time to create this custom remembrance themed cake for the residents to enjoy following the 11am two minute silence, adorned with icing poppies. Well done to everyone at The Gables Care Home for making this day special for our residents.
At Valentine House our residents have been getting creative thanks to our new Activity Coordinator Lisa who has recently joined the team, and is definitely proving she is the correct fit for the team.
With Lisa's support residents worked together to create a display for the home to mark Remembrance Day 2021.
They created a 'lone soldier' silhouette for the wall, and handcrafted individual poppies to surround it.
We think the display is lovely and we're very proud of all our staff and residents for marking this touching occasion in a person-centred way.
At York House Care Home in Dereham our residents and staff put in a huge effort to make Remembrance Day a truly momentous occasion, not only for our residents themselves but for the wider Dereham community.
Residents spent days making beautiful poppies from recycled plastic bottles they've collected with their brilliant Activities Coordinators, who were on hand every step of the way to assist. The home turned these poppies into the Remembrance garden, donning the trees and ground.
The focal point of the display was a hand-crafted life-size lone soldier who stood watch over the local community who came to visit the homes garden to mark this special occasion.
We were so impressed by the efforts of all of our homes and wanted to say thank you for your tireless commitment and dedication to our residents each and every day.