Doncaster Care Home Makes Residents’ Wishes Come True With Wish Tree Initiative
The team at Liberty House, a care home in Doncaster, are encouraging residents to write down and share their wishes, so that they help make them come true.
Liberty House, part of the Runwood Homes’ Group, are always looking for ways to enhance the lives of their residents. The Wellbeing Lead at the Doncaster care home thought of the lovely idea of the ‘wish tree’. The tree sits pride of place within the home, so that residents are easily able to add their wishes. The wishes are written down on a tag and then hung on the tree. Every month, the team pick a wish at random off the tree and make every effort to make it come true.
The wishing tree initiative is truly a community effort, with residents, the care team, relatives, friends and visitors all working together to make the wishes come true. Friends and family of Liberty House love the idea and have shown their kind support by donating towards the residents’ activities funds, which further supports the team in making the wishes come true.
The wish tree has already been very successful. This week, the team organised the Wise Owl Bird of Prey Rescue to visit as per a resident’s wish. This experience was very generously brought to life with the help of a family member of one of the residents, who ever so kindly put money towards the experience. The generosity of everyone within the Liberty House community reflects the deep-rooted value of those at the home to create a fulfilling and meaningful lifestyle for each and every resident.
The birds of prey experience was a lovely wish to bring to life and was something that everyone could enjoy. Resident Joan is blind and loved hearing all about the birds and feeling them too. Joan used to be a Brown Owl at Brownies and so the experience was a great reminiscence activity for her as well.
Jody Hughes is the Wellbeing Lead at Liberty House and helped the wish tree initiative come to life.
Jody commented:“At Liberty House we always aim to create a sense of fulfilment for residents, to learn more about them and create a space where new ideas and wishes are welcomed and embraced. The wishing tree idea was created because we wanted to do something unique for each individual and to make them feel extra special.”
The Liberty House team would like to say a big thank you to everybody who helped to make the initiative and the first wish happen and look forward to picking the next wish.
