Interviewer

Let me just start by asking what is your name, your age, and tell me a little bit more about yourself.

Julia Reeves

My name’s Julia Reeves and I’m Wellbeing Coordinator here at Acorn Lodge Care Home.

Interviewer

Could you tell me a little bit more about your role at Acorn Lodge Care Home? What do you do on a day to day basis?

Julia Reeves

I sort out all wellbeing and activities for the residents here that are stopping with us. We have two floors: one’s memory care floor and also residential. So, I’m in charge of delivering daily activities for all of our residents here at Acorn Lodge.

Interviewer

Who do you normally work with? Do you have a team?

Julia Reeves

So normally there would be three of us on the wellbeing team and I’ve also got some volunteers that come in and out during the week as well that support us.

Interviewer

Recently you’ve had more young people coming to volunteer?

Julia Reeves

Yes, so we are getting students coming from the local schools, St. Thomas Moore and Eton, to come and help support us with befriending, and also a lot of them move on, and do some activities for us with the residents.

Interviewer

What are some activities that you’ve done so far?

Julia Reeves

They’ve done word games, so I have two volunteers that come every Friday. And they’ll sit and have a chat with some of our ground floor residents. They also play word games, such as Boggle and Scategories. Everybody can get involved and have a bit of fun. They’ve done Scrabble, dominoes, card games. They’re sort of getting more confident in their role.

Interviewer

Have you noticed a difference between having younger folk volunteer?

Julia Reeves

Both have got their benefits, you know, sort of having a nice mixture of different ages is very nice. Recently, over the past 18 months, we’ve had a lot more younger volunteers and this is very nice. The residents really enjoy our younger volunteers because they’re vibrant, they’re full of fun, and they bring a bit of outside in to to our residents, you know, sort of bring the world in.

Interviewer

Do you have any specific favourite memories that you’ve seen from coordinating these activities between the residents and the younger students?

Julia Reeves

Yes, so one of our volunteers is aiming or aspiring to be a paramedic. So one of our residents used to be a nurse, so they’re discussing how things have changed in the national health and how things were years ago and, and she’s given him lots of advice. So there’s a lot of discussion. They also talk a lot, we’ve had D-day celebrations here. We had a singer that dressed up in a wartime uniform. So afterwards, after all their celebrations they could sit down and chat with the residents.

Interviewer

From all of these events and activities, like a memory such as that, how do you feel like this has benefited you personally?

Julia Reeves

Well it helps with my role because we do try to sort of offer all types of activities for all of our different residents. So this is very nice for our residents to have people come in and spend time with them, befriending or plan activities, chatting about events in the past and what’s happening now in the world. So it’s all wellbeing for our residents here.

Interviewer

Was there anything you wanted to add? Anything you wanted to share about Friends of Acorn Lodge?

Julia Reeves

Yes I think we work well with Attend and I’m very, very happy with everything that you do and, to get these volunteers in to come and visit into the home, it’s a big thing, you know, because it does benefit our residents so much and they’re happy, they’re laughing, they’re chatting with our volunteers, I’ve got to commend the volunteers because there’s not many youngsters that would do what they’re doing for the older generation and I don’t think they realise how nice it is and how our residents appreciate them. So I just want to thank all our volunteers for donating their time because they do spend quite a bit of time here. It’s lovely to be involved in this with Attend.