It’s festival season at our services!

With festival season 2020 being cancelled because of the COVID-19 outbreak, some of our services that are just a stone’s throw away from “The Stone Circle” – a Glastonbury favourite – took it upon themselves to recreate some festivals at home!

Bringing the party to Blackberry Hill

Our residential care home, Blackberry Hill, is just a short drive from the iconic Glastonbury festival! Some staff were due to attend this year’s festival and were quite disheartened when the COVID-19 pandemic forced organisers to cancel.

We spoke to Emily, the Deputy Manager at the care home, “One resident has quite an interest in music festivals but doesn’t currently have the support to enable him to go. This encouraged our proactive team to come up with a great idea – if we can’t attend the festival, we will bring the festival to Blackberry Hill!”

The staff and people we support got to work on creating the perfect at-home festival for all the residents at the service, preparing posters for different iconic Glastonbury Festival locations, wristbands and party food. The people we support really enjoyed the day of celebrating, “One of the people we support offered to join in with some singing on the karaoke machine, it’s safe to say she was smiling from ear to ear.” Emily told us.

Lavender House and Primrose Lodge’s “Glasthomebury” in the sun

Another service that decided to recreate the iconic Glastonbury Festival at home was Lavender House and Primrose Lodge in Trowbridge. We spoke to Sally-Ann, Service Manager, about their experience, “We thought since the main event was cancelled, we’d hold a mini one. It was raised in a residents’ meeting and it was a hit with everyone!”

Although sad that the festival was cancelled, it was a great opportunity for the people we support to experience the atmosphere by celebrating at the service. Carolyn, a person we support, said, “I have watched it on TV and always wondered what it would be like to go, I really enjoyed it!”

Peel House’s “Craig Fest”

Peel House in Melksham decided to create their own festival, that was held in memory of a very special person who would have been celebrating their birthday at the time.

The staff and people we support planned what food they needed and turned each room and the garden into a different festival area. They had the “rave tent” where they had glow parties and chill sessions, a “food field” complete with a wide variety of festival foods like hot dogs, ice cream, milkshakes, crepes and even a hog roast!

The care home had lots of different activities going on to suit everybody’s needs. Debbie, Service Manager, told us more, “We also had a moo-vies field where we watched new films and some old favourites with yummy movie snacks too!” Cows were a common theme at this festival, as they were important to the special person it was in memory of.

Inspired by Glastonbury, Peel House had their own “healing field” where they offered massage, relaxation time and music therapy.

The festival spanned multiple days and even had themes for fancy dress! Everyone was dressed in their DIY tie-dye tops on the Saturday and they had a black and white theme on the Sunday.

Debbie explained that they took everyone’s needs into consideration when planning the festival, “Staff and the people we support made decorations for the weekend together and set a flexible timetable, so people were able to join in with as much or as little as they wanted. The activities were chosen to ensure we offered a wide variety, which created a flexible nature for the weekend. There were some late nights and we partied hard. It was really good fun!”

The Voyage Care experience

At Voyage Care, our staff teams are committed to helping the people they support achieve the goals they set. They get so much satisfaction from seeing the residents happy, healthy and highly-spirited. This often includes working together to come up with new ideas for exciting activities. Life at our care homes is fun, vibrant and inclusive.

Are you interested in learning how we can support you, a loved one or a client in our care homes? Call our friendly enquiry team on 0800 0353 776 or email referrals@voyagecare.com.