Stand Together Glam Together donates to Scottish Care

Stand Together Glam Together was an online event that took place on 13th June to raise money for NHS Charities Together and Scottish Care during the Coronavirus pandemic.

This day saw a number of different creatives come together to share make-up and beauty tutorials, Q and A’s. Viewers were also able to take part in raffles to win wonderful prizes. 

Erin Culley, the founder of Stand Together Glam Together said: 

“2020 has been a year we will never forget since Covid-19 came and turned our lives upside down. It has put tremendous stress on the NHS and care sectors which are needing our help.  

With most of us being separated from our families and friends and feeling like we have watched everything we can on Netflix I knew I wanted to do something to help – so I created Stand Together Glam Together! This was a make up, hair and beauty event with an amazing range of industry professionals doing tutorials, demos and Q&As to help raise money for NHS Charities Together and Scottish Care.  

We know that lockdown has affected a lot of people’s mental health so we wanted this event to be something fun, entertaining as well as educational to help people through as well as raise as much money as possible for our chosen charities.”

The event was a huge success and raised a total of £1,410, of which £674 was gifted to Scottish Care. The team at Scottish Care are absolutely delighted with this. We would like to thank Erin and all the creatives and people involved in Stand Together Glam Together for their generosity and for considering the care sector during these difficult times.

We will put these funds towards Coronavirus responses, including the Tech Device Network, PPE, 1-1 support to care providers, webinars and any guidance.

You can follow Stand Together Glam Together on Instagram @StandTogether_GlamTogether, where you can watch tutorials and videos from the event.

Friendship Through the Ages

The Indigo Childcare Group has been working on an intergenerational programme – ‘Friendship Through the Ages’. As part of this, they recently dropped off a selection of artwork from their children and families to Cartvale Care Home.

Residents and the care home manager, Jean were really appreciative of the children’s work. Photos below show residents holding up the artwork to their windows, smiling and waving.

A representative from the Indigo Childcare Group said: 

“At The Indigo Childcare Group, we recognise the huge benefits of Intergenerational interaction. We are looking forward to working with Scottish Care through our ‘Friendship Through the Ages’ programme to provide engaging, exciting opportunities for two age groups to come together and create friendships.”

Live musical performances at Arran View Bupa Care Home

Residents at Arran View Bupa Care Home in Ayrshire has enjoyed a series of live musical performances from members of the community recently.

During lockdown, the staff and residents at Arran View have been working hard to keep spirits up, and making sure they followed social distancing procedure, they enjoyed live music from local singers and pipers.

To celebrate VE Day, local singer James Stirrat performed for the home, whilst the residents enjoyed afternoon tea to mark the occasion.

This performance was matched by one from Ciaran Sinclair, known as The Ayrshire Piper, who played outside to staff and residents whilst they danced in the garden and opened their windows to listen.

Completing the trio of events, Alan Anderson, another traditional local piper played for the home as the residents sampled some Scottish shortbread, whisky and sherry.

Speaking about the events, Carol Barr, General Manager said:

“It’s great to be able to lift spirits like this during lockdown. Everyone at the home really enjoyed the celebrations, and it’s amazing to enjoy live music from members of the community.”

One resident commented:

“It was a brilliant experience being able to listen to live music. Everyone at the home felt uplifted by the performances.”

Arran View Bupa Care Home is purpose-built and welcomes anyone in need of nursing or residential care. Residents are offered a full programme of regular and seasonal activities, as well as 24-hour access to highly trained medical and care staff.

Visor donation to Scottish Care members

Ian Savage, the CEO and Founder of SureCert – a Scottish Care Preferred Supplier – recently provided a donation of 1,000  free face visors to our care home members. They were delivered to Social Good Connect, a new partnership Scottish Care is working with who undertook all the logistics and delivery of the face visors, throughout the Dundee area.  Social Good Connect, whose recent launch was accelerated to help support during Covid-19, was created to offer a unique search and match function to enable employees to find volunteering opportunities and charities to access a new audience of skilled volunteers.

Ian Savage, CEO, SureCert, said:

“We are Preferred Suppliers to Scottish Care. Recently we won a major NHSx volunteering project for the care sector.  As part of this project, we came across some additional PPE and were delighted to put it to good use across the social care sector and got in touch with Scottish Care to help us do that”.

Caroline Mckenna, the CEO of Social Good Connect said:

“Working with Scottish Care has been a real privilege, we were delighted to help support the care sector and able to quickly search and match employee volunteers to deliver PPE to care organisations throughout Scotland.”

Karen Hall, the Manager of Skye View Care Home said:

“We were absolutely delighted to receive the donation of free face visors from SureCert and send a heartfelt thanks to Scottish Care for organising this.”

 

Stevensons Polishing & Upholstery donates face masks to Scottish Care

This week’s good news story is about a generous donation to Scottish Care staff and their families from local company, Stevensons Polishing and Upholstery of Ayr.

While on furlough Stevenson’s wanted to do their bit to help, so they decided to create handmade, fun and funky, washable cotton face masks to help keep everyone safe during the pandemic.

Company director Murray Stevenson shared why he felt it was important to give back.

“Scottish Care is a fantastic organisation, doing such good things to help support the care sector and the amazing key workers in Scottish care homes during this difficult time. It was a no-brainer that we wanted to do our little bit to help and we loved seeing such happy faces wearing our masks!”

Stevenson’s website – https://stevensonsayr.co.uk/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/stevensons.ayr/

Instagram – @stevensons_ayr

#scottishcare #carers #carehomes #scotland #keyworkers #facemasks #masks #ayrshire #staysafe

 

HRM Homecare Heroes

Thank you to HRM Homecare Services for sharing this interview with one of their care heroes – Lorraine. In this short clip, Lorraine talks about her experience being a care worker and why she loves her job.

Care staff welcome Aldi vouchers from Blackwood 

Specialist housing and care provider Blackwood has purchased the shopping vouchers as a thank you to its social care staff working at the front-line of the Coronavirus crisis.

Each of Blackwood’s 284 care staff received a £90 Aldi voucher to help with their essential shopping, as a token of the appreciation of their dedication to their job through the pandemic.

The donation from Blackwood is part of its continuing #ImInAwe campaign, which is dedicated to shining a light on the important front-line role care employees are playing, and to encourage more people to look at different ways to show their gratitude.

Blackwood operates across 29 local authorities in Scotland, providing housing and care support to people with a wide range of care needs.

Blackwood Chief Executive Fanchea Kelly said: “We’re so immensely proud of all of our staff who have continued to provide excellent care to all of our customers during a difficult time.”

“We have so many incredible stories of how our staff have helped customers manage during this national lockdown and have worked hard to keep spirits up along the way, use technology to keep families in touch and come up with some innovative ways to fill days with fun where possible.”

“The vouchers are a token of our appreciation for our staff. They are a way of recognising the hard work our carers do, and saying thank you to everyone for continuing to inspire us and keep our staff and customers safe.”

“One of the reasons Aldi was chosen was its range of supermarkets across the country and their dedicated opening hours for care staff – both of which will hugely benefit our team.”

Natasha Murray, Interim Care Services Manager at Blackwood, said: “The staff truly deserve the vouchers as they have gone above and beyond to support all our customers.”

Care staff have worked extremely hard through the pandemic and are putting our customers first, before anything else. We’re proud of each and every one of them.”

Fritz Walleczek, Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility at Aldi UK and Ireland, said: “Care workers remain an essential support for communities to ensure vulnerable people are looked after at this challenging time, and we’re delighted to play a part in this initiative from Blackwood to recognise the important contribution their staff make in the field.

It is estimated that up to 150,000 staff work in the social care sector across Scotland, providing vital care to people in care homes and retirement developments as well as care-at-home services.

Blackwood believes it is essential to publicly recognise the important work of its care staff, showing support and keeping morale high at a difficult time.

Fanchea added: “Often, the work of carers can go unnoticed. We would love it if more people got involved in supporting the #ImInAwe campaign, by sharing and resharing our efforts to show our carers how much they are valued and how important their work is.”

“If you or your business would like to get involved and help, we’d love to hear from you to continue to show a collective sense of support across the country.”

Blackwood aims to help people live their life to the full, by providing services which support individuals to live independently. It specialises in technology and design innovation to support the role of its housing and care staff across Scotland.

For more information, please visit: https://www.blackwoodgroup.org.uk

 

Good News Stories from Springhill Care Home

Springhill celebrate Nurses Day 2020

The 12th of May 2020 marks International Nurses Day, an annual event which celebrates the work of the nursing community, now more vital than ever as the world’s nurses remain essential in combating COVID-19.

Here are some of our staff from Springhill enjoying a little tea party as an extra special thank you and also in recognition of the nurses and key workers in our local and wider communities at this difficult time.

Springhill staff have spring in their step

Staff in Springhill have been trying hard to keep mentally and physically fit during these uncertain times by holding their own slimming club.

It has been a great motivation for the team while their usual classes have been closed during lock down.

After just a few weeks, the staff are certainly maintaining a spring in their step and having a positive mental attitude as they compete for slimmer of the week.

Well done Gill who was the most recent winner!

Since the club started, we’ve had members join who are looking to gain weight.

Being underweight can also make people feel vulnerable and affect mental health so now all the club members are motivating each other as they try to reach their goals.

 

VE day celebrations start early at Springhill

The second Friday of May 2020 will mark 75 years since VE Day as the United Kingdom remembers the end of war in Europe.

May Day bank holiday has been moved to coincide with the landmark day.

While celebrations are very different this year, our tremendous teams having been doing little bits and pieces to help mark the occasion.

Here you can see the residents from Springhill are already well prepared and are looking forward to enjoying the long weekend together.

Cakes and smiles at Springhill

Here we have Eileen, Jim and Jean from Springhill busy in their kitchen making (and eating) some delicious cakes before having a little dance.

We also have Nan looking through old photographs and reminiscing.
Just another lovely weekend in Springhill.

Springhill ladies enjoy table tennis tournament

Staying mobile during lockdown is extremely important for our residents as the movement not only benefits muscles and joints but is an invaluable way of helping them to maintain good mental health.

Here is Jean and Irene, residents in our Springhill Care Home, having a great time playing table tennis thanks to a make shift ‘court’ created by our staff.

The ladies felt wonderful after the activity and had such fun, that they didn’t even really realise they were exercising!

Good News Stories from Spiers Care Home

Hearts to help support Spiers residents during lockdown

Spiers Care Home received some lovely identical pairs of hearts from Lisa at Hearts for Crosshouse. These were made by nurses and volunteers across Ayrshire who had the idea that one heart is given to a resident and the other to their family.

Hopefully the hearts will give some comfort to residents who are unable to see their families at the moment.

Forestview Primary pupils send supportive pics to Spiers

Thank you so much to the youngsters from Forestview Primary who have sent these fab drawings and messages to Spiers Care Home.

Also thanks to resident Tommy McCann’s grandchildren for the rainbow picture. All have been displayed in pride of place and have really helped cheer up our residents and staff.

We so appreciate you thinking of us.

Spiers mark 75th anniversary of VE Day

On Friday 8th May, staff and residents celebrated the 75th anniversary of VE day at Spiers Care Home.

The home and garden was decorated with bunting and various items of memorabilia.

Our ladies and gents enjoyed sharing stories about the war, talking about their memories from days gone by and were also treated to an afternoon tea.

Arran Aromatics’ kind gesture to Spiers staff

Here are some pictures of gifts donated to Spiers Care Home for staff by Arran Aromatics.

As you can see, our team were extremely chuffed by this act of kindness and would like to say thanks!

Spiers mark 75th anniversary of VE Day

On Friday 8th May, staff and residents celebrated the 75th anniversary of VE day at Spiers Care Home.

The home and garden was decorated with bunting and various items of memorabilia.

Our ladies and gents enjoyed sharing stories about the war, talking about their memories from days gone by and were also treated to an afternoon tea.