92-year-old care home resident keeps friendship going with four-year-old via video calls

Video calls are helping a 92-year old care home resident and a four-year-old boy keep their friendship going and it is really ‘lifting Harry’s mood’ during lockdown.

Before lockdown four-year-old Harry Oatham and other children from Hopscotch Day Nursery used to arrive bi-weekly at Brentwood Care Centre.

Both residents and children enjoyed taking part in joint activities and socialising together when the care home and nursery noticed a real bond growing between Harry and one of their residents 92 year-old Eric Fase.

Brentwood activity coordinator, Alison Rankin said: “Harry just naturally used to go to Eric and they just bonded with each other straight away.

“Eric took the time to speak to Harry and help him with the activities whether it was arts and crafts play dough and story time. They bonded early on and they just couldn’t wait to see each other.”

At Christmas time, Mr Fase and a few other residents were invited down to the nursery to see their end of year play. To the amusement of the audience, when Harry noticed Mr Fase in the front row while he was on stage, he couldn’t help shouting out Mr Fase's name several times.

When the difficult decision was made at the beginning of the global pandemic to restrict visitors to the care home, it also unfortunately meant that the nursery visits had to come to an end for the immediate future.

The decision to restrict visitors was much more difficult as the care home and nursery knew how much the residents and children would miss each other.

Brentwood Care Centre invested in iPads and tablets to facilitate Skype and Facetime calls between residents and their loved ones, and encouraged the team to find new ways to ensure the residents could continue communicating regularly with the outside world.

One such method was photo messages from the residents where they were posted on Facebook.

On a day that would normally have seen a visit from the nursery, Brentwood Care Centre posted a number of pictures of residents holding up signs for the children.

’Seeing Eric and Harry’s joy has been a bright spot for our team’

When Harry’s mum Charlie Oatham noticed a message from Mr Fase, she showed it to Harry who instantly recognised him and asked what his friend was up to.

Touched by her son’s response, Ms Oatham responded to the Facebook post to let the care home know how much he was missing Mr Fase and included a photo message saying: “Miss you too. Love Harry”.

Knowing that both Mr Fase and Harry were missing each other and with the support of Ms Rankin and the nursery, they arranged with Harry’s mum for the two friends to FaceTime or Skype each other whenever they want.

Harry’s mum Ms Oatham said: “During this lockdown, it’s been tough with a four-year-old at home.

“Harry has been asking about his school friends his teacher and his friends from the care home. Especially Eric, who he has a great relationship with. Being able to FaceTime with Eric on occasions has really lifted Harry’s mood and I’m sure has done so with Eric too.”

Ms Rankin said: “Eric looks forward to seeing Harry and you can see the difference after they have spoken to each other.”

Brentwood Care Centre manager Torie Pollard said: “Seeing Eric and Harry’s joy when they video call each other has been such a bright spot for our team and we’re glad that we’ve been able to help the two maintain their strong friendship with each other.

"Here at Brentwood Care Centre, we are very proud of the links we have built in our local community and the relationships that have blossomed from those links such as our partnership with Hopscotch Day Nursery.

“Bringing our communities together and giving different generations the chance to learn from one another is vital in the ethos of our home. Not only can we learn from our local community, more importantly our local community can learn from the wonderful residents who live at Brentwood."

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