Sensival 2025

2025 Sensival returned with a magical twist…

Using the therapeutic approach of Sensology, we transported our residents to the wonderful world of Harry Potter!

Our residents started by trying on the Sorting Hat a few weeks in advance and being sorted into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. They were then asked to wear their house colours for the day, so they could attend some activities in their houses.

Our Sight station looked at The Four Houses, with bright colours, glittering backdrops and items from the magical world in each of those colours. Our resident Harry Potter nerd and SLTA gave talks about the qualities of each house, and encouraged the residents to explore the enchanting sights.

Our Taste station offered something for everyone, including Spiced Pumpkin soup, a variety of cakes, and Butterscotch Hot Chocolate. We also had lip balms in the flavours of ‘Lemon Sherbet’, ‘Honeydukes Sweets’ and ‘Butterscotch’, for our residents that don’t eat orally.

The Sound station, lead by our Music Therapist, used a variety of music technology and traditional instruments to create a lively atmosphere, along with an activity included to find and piece together the correct notes for the famous Harry Potter theme tune.

Our resident Aromatherapist lead the Smell station, with 8 scents inspired by locations in the magical world. The activity was to smell each scent and correctly pair it with the magical location. This was all done with our Music & Movement Therapist providing calming sounds in the background for a magical ambience.

The Touch station took part in Hagrid’s Hut, a wooden structure built in our garden. Inside there were wall mounted tactile frames that represented different aspects of the magical world, for example feathers to represent Fawkes the Phoenix, and white wool to represent Dumbledore. There was also some sticky, gooey potion ingredients for residents to get their hands into!

As well as our traditional stations, we created a small, multisensory Herbology Greenhouse, which included fresh herbs to smell, soil to dig around in, and ‘highly poisonous’ UV plants to see!

And a mini Diagon Alley, which displayed items from the Harry Potter world. There was an Ollivanders full of wands, a Flourish & Blotts with a range of books, Gringotts the wizarding bank with a philosophers stone, silver and gold treasures and chocolate coins to enjoy, and a table full of general Harry Potter items such as Quidditch balls and paintings.

At the end of the day, each house attended their own ‘Care of Magical Creatures’ class, where we had a wonderful company bring in snakes, tarantulas, rats, tortoise and more! This was a lovely experience for the residents to be up close and personal with animals they wouldn’t see on a day to day basis.

There was a wonderful traditional feast and the famous sweet trolley for all staff and family members to enjoy, so by the end of the day everyone seemed to be full of food, fun and wishing they didn’t have to go back to the real world 😃

Exciting visitors

We have had some visitors come and visit us at Sophie House today! There are 12 ducklings in total. The male and female duck have visited the pond often but this is the first time she has brought her babies with her

Spring has arrived

It definitely sounds and looks like spring is making its way in! With the warmer days and flowers starting to bloom, it seems like the season is shifting. Nature has a way of giving us little hints, and those early blooms are a good sign that spring is on the horizon. What flowers are starting to pop up in your area?

Christmas

What another busy week we have had in the lead up to Christmas. On Monday a snowman came to visit us. He was very friendly and not cold at all. On Tuesday the reindeers from Pony Parties & Reindeer Hire | Angel's Animal Ark | Herefordshire, Fownhope came to visit. Tomor and baby Dasher were very soft and we all enjoyed stroking them.

Christmas

What a busy week we have had! We started off with our pantomime “Aladdinia and the magic gramophone”, expertly led by our music therapist Gersom and his band. We sang lots of Abba based songs and joined in with pantomime spirit! On Wednesday evening we joined in with the advent spiral. We were given a candle and we chose where on the spiral to place it, then sang lots of beautiful carols. We have eaten lots of mince pies and cakes made by our cooks, thank you, they were yummy! We rounded the week off by making wreaths and decorating the Christmas Trees.

Snow

Don’t the gardens look pretty when it snows. Some of us wrapped up warm, went outside and made a snowman, who we called Gary. We even had a snowball fight!

Luxmuralis space at Hereford Cathedral

Residents from both homes attended the Cathedral over all four nights to see the spectacular light show. With mesmerizing lights as well as euphonious sounds it gave a truly immersive experience for all. Photos do not do the light show justice. Please head over to our Facebook page to watch the videos - Martha Trust Hereford Ltd | Facebook

Disney Sensival at Sophie House

What a fun filled day we have all had! On the 19th September we participated in fun activities focusing on our different senses through the magic of Disney. We started the day off with a costume parade where we all dressed up as our favourite Disney characters. We then went around the garden going to each themed station to see what fun there was to be had!

The stations themes were: 

 

TOUCH – Tarzen (feeling the different textures of material that represents each character)

SOUND – Lion King (listening to short phrases from the film using switches as well as playing an array of African instruments)

SMELL – Princesses (smelling different scents that represent the 12 different princesses)

TASTE – Alice in Wonderland (Tasting cakes and drinking flavoured tea/using flavoured lip balm)

SIGHT – Mickey Mouse short films

Ursula’s Cave (immersive experience walking through the tunnel and exploring the items inside)

Disney themed games including aiming boards and large card games

 

The dining room was set up as a Beauty and the Beast dining hall with the all the characters joining us too! We all enjoyed the French cuisine that our kitchen staff put on for us all.

A massive thank you to the Speech and Language team for putting this event on and all the other therapists for helping on the day.

Sophie House Day

On the 1st October we celebrated the anniversary of Sophie House opening. Sophie House opened on the 1st October 2012, and every year on that date we think about all the residents and their families that have been involved in Sophie House. We tied ribbons to a tree and the residents painted stones that were placed around the base of the tree. We all then enjoyed a lovely piece of birthday cake and rounded the day off with some dancing.

Hereford Cycle Track

May Day Celebrations

We started off our celebrations by making flower wreaths and bracelets. We did some dancing and singing before the May Pole dance. We made a pattern with the ribbon whilst singing songs, before enjoying tea and cake. What a fun filled morning we had. Thank you Susanne and Gersom for the music, songs and dancing.

World book day 2024

The staff and residents celebrated World book day by dressing up as characters from books. We created our own Gruffalo trail around the garden finding the characters in the book. Once we had found them we read the passage that went with each of the characters. Awards were given out to those involved.

Geography week at Sophie House

We have been exploring different Countries from around the world during geography week.

Monday - first stop was Africa. We listened and danced to African music and smelt and tasted watermelon and oranges. We had our faces painted in a tribal style and ate Jollof rice cooked by Victoria, which was lovely.

Tuesday - we had Around the world tac pacday. We used chopsticks for China, red fans for Spain, little clogs for the Netherlands, maple leaves for Canada, grass skirts for New Zealand and bowler hats for Slovakia. We listened to music from around the world, enjoyed massages with hot stones and warm bamboo. For lunch we had vegetable curry.

Wednesday - we went to Mexico. We made Mayan face masks and took part in a tribal dance. Lunch was Mexican pasta and Nicky made a variety of Mexican dishes for the staff to try.

Thursday - we had Around the world playdough day. We made landmarks and iconic symbolic items from different countries. We made pizza with our choice of toppings and enjoyed a delicious pasta carbonara.

Friday - we celebrated Chinese New Year, Year of the Dragon. We decorated dragons as well as taking part in Chinese tacpac. Lunch was a delicious stir fry and noodles along with a Chinese feast, which was prepared by Nicky, which included lucky fortune cookies.

Pancake Day

Today I opened a Pancake Bar. I made the batter mixture (whoops I got in a bit of a mess lol) and then helped to cook them. I had a cheeky taster before opening the bar. I charged people for their pancakes and then they got to choose what toppings they would like on their pancake. Everybody said the pancakes were lovely.

Reindeers

The reindeers from Angels animal ark came to visit today. The residents from Martha House and Sophie House came together to meet up with Jasper and Tomor, the two reindeers. Everyone loved seeing the reindeers and they really put us in a Christmassy mood. Thank you Pony Parties & Reindeer Hire | Angel's Animal Ark | Herefordshire, Fownhope (angelsanimalark.co.uk)

Martha Trust receives an award

Lisa Purslow (Trust Director) Laura Morris (Care Manager Sophie House) and Pete Griffiths (Health, Safety & Quality Lead) recently attended the Annual Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service Medals and Awards Ceremony. The evening was a wonderful celebration of many very brave and dedicated fire fighters and we were delighted to be awarded the Chief Fire Officer’s Employer Award. Pete is a retained fire fighter released from his work at Martha Trust and we are very proud to support his contribution to our community.

Geography week

During the week commencing 13th November 2023, we embraced National Geography Week at Martha House! We had a number of sensory activities throughout the week to promote understanding of different cultures, which was not only beneficial for the residents, but the staff too.

The activities for the week were:

Monday: Making Mayan Masks
Tuesday: Around the World TACPAC (taking a concept and experiencing it through music and a tactile experience)

Wednesday: African Sensology (Sensology is experiencing something through all 5 senses; taste, touch, smell, sound and sight)

Thursday: Around the World Playdough activity (different coloured and scented playdough to represent a country, and building things associated with that country with the playdough)

Friday: Around the World OMI Activities (OMI is an interactive projector which reacts to residents voluntary and involuntary movements)

The residents were given different cuisines to experience each day at lunch, and our staff members from different countries really helped pull it together by cooking and bringing in traditional food from their country. We had Indian, African, Asian (Filipino and Cambodian) and Eastern European.

We’ve had lots of lovely comments from staff members and residents family saying how lovely it was to bring everyone together and learn about different cultures, and I think the week was a total success!

We look forward to repeating it again at Sophie House early next year