Residents and staff at 22 Black Swan care homes across East Anglia have been creating new accommodation to welcome a different group of new residents at their homes.
As part of the launch of their Environmental Sustainability Strategy, Black Swan Care Group held an internal competition for homes to create and construct bug hotels from recycled materials. The new hotels have been placed in positions in gardens at the homes. Most homes opted for sturdy constructions using old pallets and drilled holes in sawn-through branches and small pieces of wood. Other materials like twigs, leaves, shells, pine cones and stones were then placed to create hiding places and cosy nooks for bugs, beetles, butterflies, insects and bees.
Residents also enjoyed painting and decorating the hotels with flowers, ladybirds and other insects as part of their regular craft sessions. Most chose to name their bug hotel, with excellent puns such as Bee-n-Bee, Holiday Inn-sect, The Ugly Bug Hotel and the Bug-tory Hotel.
Judges reviewed the entries based on appearance, construction, resident involvement to come up with a winner, which was ultimately chosen as Valentine House, which supports people living with dementia in Silver End, Essex. Their splendidly-named Bug-ingham Palace features a solid construction, with plenty of living and hiding accommodation for different types of bugs. It has been decorated with painted flowers, ladybirds and other insects, made by the residents at the home.
The competition was held as part of Black Swan’s a new Environmental Sustainability Strategy, supporting CQC’s assessment framework in the Well-Led aspect of home registration. Within the assessment, there is an obligation for homes to understand the negative impact of activities on the environment and that staff and leaders in homes recognise the impact and take active steps to focus on embedding low-carbon care and resource efficiency.
Richard Lain-Smith, Head of Marketing at Black Swan Care Group, said: “We thought it would be fun to launch our Environmental Sustainability strategy with a competition to build a bug house and had some fantastic entries. Homes have been building them through February and March and now that they’re finished, they’ve been placed out in our gardens ready for some new residents.
“We take our obligation to be compliant and supportive of environmental sustainability very seriously, understanding how our actions and activities impact on the environment. Every one of our homes has its own Environmental Champion who takes responsibility for how we fulfil our commitments. We’ve also had lots of residents who have taken a keen interest in what we’re doing and finding out more about how our actions have an impact on the environment.”
