Kent Care Home Mesmerises Residents with “Enchanted forest” Event

Birchwood House, the Tunbridge Wells-based care home has held a “mesmerising and magical” event for its residents and staff, as it celebrated an autumn ‘Enchanted Forest’ event.

Following on from its recent carnival-themed summer event, which included fairground games, food and live music, the care home staff have this time planned a captivating woodland event which allowed the residents to relax in their seats whilst enjoying the beautiful scenery and wildlife.

The enchanted forest theme was chosen by staff at the care home as it lends itself to a truly immersive experience for all involved. As always, the gardens were transformed with stunning scenery to accompany the theme, which included rich, rusty décor and autumnal colours, alongside home-crafted table props created by the residents in the run up to the event. Wishing wells, giant toadstools and earthy green elegance all dressed the gardens.

To add interaction to the event, the care home staff organised for many living woodland animals to join the event, including hedgehogs, bunnies, frogs, snakes, and sheep. The animals charmed the residents whilst the keeper engaged all by holding talks on each animal allowing the residents to learn many interesting facts.

Forest fairies hung from trees, haybales lay scattered across the lawns and sprinkled petals lead the way through to the stunning landscaped gardens of the home. Logs, flowers, and birdcages all accompanied in creating the enchanted woodland scenery and truly transported those present into a mystical wonderland.

All who attended dined on a woodland–themed picnic prepared by in-house chef, Elia. After all, you can’t go to the woodlands without one! Also on offer was an ice cream cart to keep everyone cool.

These fabulous events are held every new season at Birchwood House with the residents at the forefront of all the plans. The home has continued to successfully run these events throughout the pandemic which have included a 1940s Tea Dance and Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

“At Birchwood House, we really enjoy planning our seasonal events for our residents and team, and we know how popular they are. We like to go all out with our décor to ensure a truly magical and immersive experience for everyone involved.” comments Claire Tye, deputy manager of Birchwood House.

Claire adds, “We work really hard to plan these events and are so proud to have yet again created such a beautiful themed event. Autumn is such a colorful season and we really wanted to bring the woodland themed event to life by using our fabulous gardens and creating a magical backdrop. It’s great to see the residents sitting and socialising and having such a lovely time together and the animals in particular were popular. The theme really worked well with the beautiful autumn sunshine and again we will take away some special memories from today’s event.’”