Inter-generational communication continues to bring smiles to our residents
Bupa’s Bayford House Care Home in Newbury has been delivering elderly nursing and residential care for the past 30 years.
Over the past few weeks, our care homes have been lucky enough to receive an abundance of beautiful cards, letters and drawings from members of the local community. The arrival of these put smiles on all our faces. Many of these for Bayford House Care Home are from our neighbouring primary school in Stockcross.
The relationship with the school started back in November when the pupils started to visit. We initially started bringing residents and pupils together with painting abstract poppies whilst chatting and learning about WW2. It led to the start-up of a PenPal scheme, which sees Ruth, one of our resident’s, now 102 who previously worked as a nanny and also served as an RAF nurse during the second world war to start receiving letters from an 8-year pupil.
The intergenerational care programme run at the home sees children and residents regularly enjoy an afternoon of crafts and activities together and it’s lovely to still receive the letters from pupils coming in.
In one of the letters to the home, Krystal wrote ‘If I could help I honestly would but obviously I can’t for many reasons like; I’m only eleven and I don’t know my way around Bayford. There is one thing I can do though, wish you good luck’
Another child wrote ‘I know how it feels to not be able to see your grandchildren because I love to see my grandad and I go to visit him every week before and after my dancing class, but because of this awful virus, I can’t see him and his beautiful smile. I can’t wait until this is all over and I can come to meet and visit you all more often”.
It’s not been an easy few weeks at Bayford House Care Home, like many care homes across the country. The team have pulled together, worked extra shifts, cancelled annual leave, stayed late, stayed overnight in the care home, doing whatever they could to ensure our residents got the care and attention they need. We’ve seen high numbers of staff in the home having to self-isolate following the Public Health England’s precautionary guidance which has all added extra pressure to the home at such difficult times. It’s the random acts of kindness, like the letters, poems and drawings that have helped to bring smiles to many.