Somerset Care: Care Home Open Week 2023

Care Home Open Week 2023, organised by Championing Social Care, took place between the 26th June and 2nd July. This week-long annual event encourages homes to open their doors and show what they have to offer to their local community. It was a record-breaking year for the number of homes and local MPs that participated, including one of our Care & Support Jobs’ employers - Somerset Care.

Somerset Care had a wide variety of events going on across the week. A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, a sports day, lots of live music and much more, the doors were open for everyone. As well as this, Somerset Care hosted recruitment days alongside, in order to show people interested in working in care some of the things they could expect in their career. The Somerset Care recruitment team were on site at the homes throughout the week, and have spoken to us about their experience.

Thomas - "I thoroughly enjoyed my time visiting Portcullis House, I was welcomed with open arms and introduced to staff members and residents on arrival.

I must admit, my favourite part of the visit was making friends with two residents in particular, one who used to be a mathematician and told me I had made his day by chatting to him. The other was a lovely lady who had been a nurse for over 30 years. She enlightened me on her career and even brought me a big folder with her qualifications and CV which was a very interesting to read through."

Max - "I visited Moorhaven in Taunton & Sunnymeade in Chard during Care Home Open Week. I had planned for my visits to be recruitment-focused, but this certainly did not turn out to be the case! Somerset Care had fully "bought-in" to the spirit of Care Home Open Week all across the
region.

Sunnymeade's residents had chosen "summer holidays" as their theme, with common spaces decorated to represent the UK, USA, France, China & Hawaii! The Mayor of Chard visited in the afternoon, had a tour of the home and spent time with staff & residents. My day was rounded off by being commandeered for dance with Heather, the Deputy Manager, to an Elvis Presley impersonator. Certainly not what I expected and I am living in hope that the video does not surface - no one needs to see my dancing!

All in all, I had a great time at both homes (even the dancing ... ) - it is always a joy to spend time with residents and the teams who provide them with bucketloads of care & support."

Lewis - "Care Home Open Week was a great experience - from meeting the wonderful staff to the lovely residents, at Grovelands in Yeovil.

The staff also gave us a tour of their facilities, so that we were able to meet with residents and see how they live. The facilities were extremely good, and the residents were all friendly and looked very well looked after.

All in all, Care Home Open Week was a great success, and something which I would definitely recommend and would like to take part in in the near future."

Here at Care & Support Jobs, we think Somerset Care did a great job of embracing Care
Home Open Week.

Keep an eye out for Somerset Care's current vacancies.