Glimpse of Brilliance: Race Day

Our project manager, Charlie, spoke with Clare, Care Home Manager at Harmony House, to find out all about her fantastic idea of hosting a race day.

Harmony House is a 12 bed residential care home, specialising in Mental Health, with the majority of residents being male, ranging from 56 – 83 years old. On a regular Saturday one year ago, a lot of residents liked to spend their afternoons placing bets on horse races. With the new way of living however, this has become somewhat a memory. So to raise sprits in the home and to give residents some independence back, Clare had the brilliant idea of hosting a Harmony House Race Day!

Clare picked up a Race Night DVD and residents gathered around a TV to watch. There were also some little additions to help give some more reality, including fake money and homemade betting slips. Winnings included chocolate bar prizes, which made the residents smile!

After what has been an upside down year, this event helped to cheer residents up and give them a taste of normality, and part of their routine that they used to look forward to. The activity helped to stimulate resident’s minds and gave an opportunity to engage with each other. The residents loved race day and when speaking to Clare, residents keep asking when the next one is!

Since the success of race day, Clare said that Harmony House have put a lot more activities on and what is even more fantastic to hear is that more people are joining in. Some residents used to do a lot on their own but after the race day and seeing how much fun it was, they have slowly started to join in more.  Recently indoor bowling has been another popular activity!