Staff and service users at Wallacewell Day Centre recently participated in a Care About Physical Activity (CAPA) challenge and took the opportunity to raise money for a local charity important to them. 

CAPA aims to promote continued or improved health for people using care services by encouraging them to move more through planned or daily activities. Before lockdown, the Care Inspectorate were rolling out CAPA and Wallacewell Day Care had been working closely with them. 

Now that services are up and running again, staff wanted to re-establish the CAPA step challenge as a ‘Launch’ to ongoing CAPA work within the centre. 

The Challenge was for service users to walk a circuit of the garden. Staff also took this as an opportunity to build on friendships formed during our Challenge Cup and invited visitors from our other day care centres to join in. Everyone participated regardless of ability and, if needed, were supported by staff.

The centre has also been busy re-establishing links with the local community and were actively contributing to a local food bank. This led to service users discussing sponsorship for the challenge. It was agreed that staff would raise funds for charity based upon the step challenge. The Marie Curie Hospice is local to Wallacewell Day Centre and everyone felt it would be a worthwhile beneficiary of their fund raising.

The garden was tidied up, start and finish lines were drawn up and decorated and everyone dressed up for the challenge. Yellow was the colour scheme for decorations and outfits, in keeping with the Marie Curie theme. Robin Wallace, Head of Residential and Day Care Services for Older People, said “Every member of staff contributed to the event. The staff did an excellent job and I thank them for all their efforts in organising the event and all their ongoing support to our service users.”

The atmosphere was very upbeat, friendly, inclusive and supportive. Healthy snacks and drinks (and a few cakes!) were supplied and we were fortunate enough to be able to enjoy the whole event outdoors all week. There was lots of motivational music and everyone who participated was called up to receive a medal and certificate of achievement to rounds of applause and cheers. 

A Marie Curie representative attended to receive a cheque for their organisation. One of the service users who had been coming to day care for over twenty years presented the cheque. Staff had surpassed their expectations and, with the support of friends and family, had raised over £800.

Dean Sockalingum, Service Manager for Older People Residential and Day Care Services, attended the event and said “This was a Fantastic event that was very well supported by service users and staff alike who went above and beyond to organise and run a hugely successful week of physical activity that will benefit us all. The raising of such a wonderful amount of money through sponsorship and donations was warmly and sincerely welcomed by Marie Curie.
A heartfelt thanks to all the people involved and I am very proud of the team for all their efforts.”

Amanda from Marie Curie Hospice, added “We could hear the music and laughter before we arrived. It was great to see fundraising in action after years of not being able to attend events. We were smiling from the moment we walked in and it was great to see the service users punching the air when they crossed the finish line.”

The services users who attended all stated they had a fantastic time and comments include:

• Hawthorn service users stated “best day ever!” and “was overjoyed at receiving a medal.”
• Woodside service users said “they enjoyed the company of other service users and found everyone very friendly.”
• Focal Point service users said “lovely afternoon, the music made me want to get up and dance”; “I was marching in time to the music and felt alive” and “I had a good day and love my medal.”

We look forward to hearing more about the achievements of those who use our Day Care Services.