Laurel Lodge launches memory books to memorialise residents in special gift to families

Losing a loved one is incredibly hard at the best of times, made more difficult by the Coronavirus pandemic, so Laurel Lodge have chosen to memorialise our residents memories for their loved ones. 

Throughout 2020 our residents and their families have had to make great changes and adapt how they interact with each other, which we know has not been easy. We’re incredibly grateful for the unending support of our residents family and friends and we wanted to ensure they were aware of how much they mean to us. 

Each of our residents is a branch on our family tree, and we hold the belief that our family extends to the people who matter most for our residents. Afterall, ‘your family is our family’ at Black Swan Care Group and we aim to treat them as such. 

Laurel Lodge will create custom memory books for our residents loved ones when they’ve passed on, which include photographs and special moments from their time within our care. We want to memorialise the amazing impact each of our residents have on the home and the part they play within our community, whilst sharing memories from staff about how much that resident meant to them. 

It’s important to us that our residents are never forgotten, as they will always be a part of the Black Swan family and we feel it is important to show their loved ones how much they are cared about as an amazing individual, by each and every member of the staff team within the home. 

This project launched in late 2020 and allowed us to begin with providing our resident Brian Parker’s family with a memory book for his children, after Laurel Lodge provided end of life care to Brian.

Brian’s son Dean and daughter Kira have each received a copy of the book which is full of all our favourite memories and photographs from Brian’s time with us. It also features quotes from each staff member describing what looking after Brian meant to each of them. 

We also feel it is important for our residents and staff to still feel connected with our residents who’ve passed on, so the home will keep a copy to allow our residents to take part in reminiscence activities and still feel close to their friend when they are no longer with us.

They will also feature in our photo baubles on our memory tree each year at Christmas.  We want to keep their memory alive in the home, as they will always be part of our family regardless of how long they have been gone. 

Brian’s son Dean was over the moon to receive the memory book about his father, and we are so pleased to see this project bring them so much comfort at such a difficult time. Dean and his family were incredibly grateful for the work staff did and shared this touching post through social media as well as sending the staff a lovely present to show their gratitude.  

Thank you to Brian’s family and all of our residents families who have shown us such support at such a difficult time.