Building stronger connections and brightening lives in Hampshire

20/3/2025 0 Comments

Building stronger connections and brightening lives in Hampshire

It's two years since Embracing Age launched in Hampshire, and we’ve made some incredible strides in supporting older people. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of so many individuals and groups across the county, we are now linking with care homes and supporting residents in a growing number of areas locally, as you'll see from the many pins on the map below!

Read on to see the positive impact we’ve made together and the exciting initiatives still to come ...

Making regular meaningful connections: The impact of our befrienders

A big thank you to the 15 befrienders who have given their time to visit residents every week – and the 8 befrienders due to start visiting soon - we are really grateful to each of you.

Our amazing befriender volunteers have collectively spent over 550 hours with residents – their visits involve chatting and listening to individuals, and engaging in fun activities such as games, quizzes, flower arranging, reading poetry and discussions. On average, 80 residents have contact with, or take part in a group activity, with our volunteers every month.

Care home staff say what a positive difference the befriending visits make to the wellbeing of residents, and our befrienders likewise love their visits and benefit from them greatly.

We're also connecting care homes with local community groups to spend time doing activities together. One craft group met at a nearby care home one week, enabling residents to make fun rag wreaths; some residents were initially hesitant to take part, but with encouragement and help from the crafters, they were very proud of their finished wreaths. Another volunteer visits her local care homes every month to make cards with the residents that they can give to loved ones for special occasions. We also have a new initiative for care home residents to make cards for residents at a linked care home, with the hope they can have outings to meet their "pen pals" in person.

“My visits to the care home are always a joy and it is wonderful to be able to build up a rapport with the residents.”

A befriender

“Carol has built up a lovely relationship with our residents, they look forward to her visit.
The engagement and interest Carol has with our residents is wonderful to see. She is respectful, positive, encouraging, and making a huge difference to our residents' wellbeing. We are so pleased to have her.”

A Care Home Manager

Bringing generations together

We've loved being part of some amazing intergenerational connections forming between care homes and their local preschools and schools, guiding and scouting groups, children's church groups, and through partnerships with local libraries.

Children and library users are making beautiful handmade cards, which the residents love receiving. Some of the groups hand-deliver their cards to the care homes and spend time with the residents, which has been a success across the generations.

Several school choirs perform at their local care home and a children’s orchestra regularly visits to entertain residents. Some residents have enjoyed outings to nearby schools to watch concerts and plays, including a performance of Grease where residents couldn't help singing along, and enjoyed reminiscing with the students about watching the film at the cinema when it was released, and about fashions and hairstyles too.

It's been brilliant having Duke of Edinburgh students volunteering with us, including by spending time with residents when helping with group activities such as bingo, making beautiful cards and gifts for residents, and entertaining residents with weekly musical performances and singalongs. One resident was inspired by a student to rekindle his enjoyment of playing the piano and “looked so thrilled to be playing again”.

“We've developed intergenerational relationships with the residents through sessions sharing songs, art, stories and visiting the care home. I am so passionate to give the children the opportunity to learn compassion, respect and the value of empathy and kindness towards [older people]. The first time we visited, the residents came alive and seemed to be enjoying their time spent with the children."

A Preschool Manager

Christmas wreath by a Squirrels group of children aged 3 and 4 years

Cards of Kindness: Spreading joy and warmth through handcrafted messages

Thank you to the team of 17 volunteers who regularly make, write and deliver Cards of Kindness each month, and the large number of individuals, community groups, schools and preschools, and children’s clubs who support the project making cards for their local care homes throughout the year.

An average of 120 residents receive a handmade card every month and many more receive cards on their birthday and at seasonal times. In 2024, over 1,200 residents received a Christmas card.

Our volunteers make a wide range of styles, from our colouring templates for children as young as 2, to collages from repurposed cards, and volunteers drawing, painting or crafting sensory designs for residents who enjoy having a tactile card. One volunteer enjoys taking photographs of her local area and writes in the card about the sights, sounds and smells she encountered there, which is a wonderful way of bringing the outside in, particularly for bed-bound residents. One resident was thrilled to receive a knitted sunflower card as sunflowers hold a special significance for her so the card brought wonderful memories.

Crafters often tell us how being able to use their creative skills to support residents brings a new perspective to their crafting.

"It's lovely to know that other people think about us and are willing to make us amazing cards and gifts.”

A resident regularly receiving cards

“Despite having no prior experience of card making, I started creating handmade monthly cards for 19 residents when I learned that a quarter of the residents of my local care home either received no visitors or only very infrequent visitors.
It's a small difference to be able to make someone's day to let them know that they do matter, someone does care and that they haven't been forgotten about, particularly when other residents receive visits from relatives and friends.”

A volunteer

Creative gifts: Volunteers and local retailers unite for residents

Over 100 individuals and craft groups have been busy making a wide selection of handmade items, including blankets, twiddle muffs, walking frame bags and craft flowers. We’ve also teamed up with some great local retailers, whose customers have donated some wonderful items. This generosity has enabled us to give gifts to hundreds of care home residents with no family or friends, at Christmas and on their birthdays, or throughout the year to meet specific requests, like a recent donation of catheter bag covers to give residents more dignity when in communal areas.

Our Spring Flower project was a huge success. Volunteers made flowers from wool, paper, felt, material, tissue paper, card, even colourful serviettes. These were made into posies for residents to enjoy – many were gifted to residents to brighten their rooms, others were given for communal areas for groups of residents to enjoy and were often a talking point during mealtimes. One resident was particularly appreciative of her flower posy as she loves flowers but due to allergies is no longer able to have real flowers in her room; she was thrilled to be able to enjoy her knitted roses, carnations and lavender, created by some very talented crafters and they looked incredibly lifelike too.

We’re in the process of beginning a new area of support – care bags for residents who arrive at a care home straight from hospital and need essential toiletry items, but have no family members to provide them. Care homes are welcoming this support and volunteers are generously helping to stock these bags. We are also including handmade blankets in the bags and hope these residents will feel warm inside too, knowing that people in their community care and want to support and welcome them at a time of big adjustment to new surroundings.

If you'd like to get involved in making crafts for residents, click here for a few ideas to inspire you.

“It was a very heartwarming Christmas gift. I loved the card and it is still on display in my room. It is lovely made. The handwarmers were just what I need. I usually sit in my chair and relax and to have them covering my hands is perfect. Thank you to whoever made the card and knitted the hand warmers. You made my day!”

A resident

“Some of our residents do not have family visits so receiving cards and gifts really helped lift their mood and not feel so left out”.

The gifts are “received by residents with big smiles.”

The gifts are “a huge blessing to residents. Thank you”.

Care Home Staff

Craft flower wreath

Seasonal fun and competition

Recent seasonal projects included a sunflower growing competition and our Care Home Olympics challenges. The projects generated some great friendly rivalry between the care homes involved and have led to some wonderful connections.

Initially, the care homes were sceptical that their residents could take part in the challenges, but specially adapted activities meant even residents in bed could participate, such as the 100m sprint, which was completed using two dice!

Faith in action: Church support for care home residents

It’s been great linking up with local churches to support existing pastoral connections with their local care homes, and to help create new church and care home links. It’s a joy to see these homes and residents supported by churches for services and pastoral visits, and the end of life support they provide to residents, families and care staff is greatly appreciated. We are also very grateful to Hampshire churches who have chosen to support us financially through their tithe giving and donations raised by church groups at breakfast meetings, social events and more.

We’ve hosted two conferences for churches in Hampshire, focused on equipping church leaders and pastoral teams to serve older people, including training on coming alongside people living with dementia. The conferences also aimed to establish ways for us to collaborate and support each other in these ministries.

There is a huge need for befrienders and craft volunteers to meet referrals for residents with no regular outside connections, and we would love to partner with more churches to support these residents, for example if someone in your church could take in cards made by the local community, or befriend a resident, especially if they are going into the home anyway. Please do contact Zoe to discuss how your church could get involved; she would be happy to arrange to visit your church to talk about our vision and our projects.

Pictures for Joy: Where local memories meet community connections

A collaboration with a school enabled us to give beautiful photo books to several care homes in their area. The pupils took photos or produced artwork of a favourite local place and wrote about what it means to them. The images and words were then compiled into a book on the theme of “Love where you live” and gifted at Christmas for residents to enjoy. One care home said the book was a “perfect way to reminisce about the local area”. Another played lots of memory games using their book and said it was so nice seeing the residents living with dementia engaging with these games too.

Looking ahead, we are planning to extend our Pictures of Joy project to produce more photo books and have started to connect with photographers and artists to gather images for these. We are also exploring how we can use music as a way of connecting the community, and especially children, with care home residents.

Get involved and follow our work

Hampshire has a high number of care home residents with little or no regular outside connection, and we are always in need of volunteers to meet the demand of referrals from care homes for befriending, regular cards and our other initiatives. Our volunteers receive full training and support, and there are a wide range of ways you can make a difference with whatever time or skills you can offer.

Please see our Hampshire webpage for full details of these volunteer opportunities:

Befrienders
Cards of Kindness volunteers - make, write or deliver to care homes near you
Cards of Kindness coordinators (for a particular area or small group of care homes)
Craft volunteers
Pictures of Joy volunteers
Newsletter and social media volunteers
Fundraising volunteers

We are also looking for volunteers to help with the following - please contact Zoe to find out more:

Seasonal support delivering gifts
School liaison - to coordinate a link between an individual school and their local care home(s)
Church liaison - to be a link between an individual church and their local care home(s)
Coordinating the care bags project for an individual care home or small group of care homes
Setting up our new intergenerational music project

If you’re on Facebook, please follow our page, Embracing Age Hampshire, and share our posts with your family, friends and members of your community to inspire others to get involved. We regularly post updates there about our work, including stories and requests from care homes, and information about our seasonal projects, social craft sessions and volunteering opportunities.

You can also stay up to date by signing up to receive our newsletter here.

Visit our Hampshire page to get involved