Creative Spaces celebrated Halloween with a week of all things autumnal and pumpkin related!
On Tuesday a group of staff and residents from Trevarna were joined by local community members, young people, and our own Creative Spaces film crew on a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. We managed a short walk through the gardens - making up our Nature Palettes as we walked! – before an unexpected and torrential downpour sent us all running for the tea rooms.
Despite the wet weather everyone enjoyed sharing conversations over tea and cake, having a wander round the shop and taking in the fantastic (and undercover!) harvest display …
Pumpkin carving at Trevarna provided welcome respite from a very wet half term break … young people joined residents, care staff and volunteers carving pumpkins in readiness for Saturday’s competition. Templates were provided for those who were stuck for ideas … but most opted to carve ‘free form’ designs, resulting in some rather scary pumpkin faces from the young people, while residents’ designs tended to be a lot friendlier!
It is the physical interaction, the actual ‘hands on’, tactile element that makes this activity so enjoyable … of course the young people loved getting messy with the pumpkin pulp … however, this also meant involving residents as fully as possible, despite understandable concerns about sharp knives and candle flames! Staff at Trevarna were aware of these potential risks, but felt that the benefits gained and quality of experience made small risks worth taking.
An enjoyable and activity-packed week was rounded off with an evening Halloween celebration and pumpkin competition, held at Trevarna – this was our first activity organized in collaboration with the newly formed Trevarna Community Activity group and it was definitely a success!
Wendy and I got carried away in the Halloween aisle at Asda, filling our trolleys with spooks and ghouls, spider’s webs and fairy lights shaped like bats and pumpkins to decorate the garden room, along with a very special gargoyle water feature for the garden itself! Trevarna staff made a delicious soup with the leftover pumpkin pulp, and there were plenty of home-baked Halloween themed cakes and cookies for those with a sweet tooth.
The pumpkins were lit in the garden and St Austell Cllr. Jill Trewhella came along to help with the judging and prize giving. Residents, young people and staff were thrilled to win prizes for carving the scariest, ugliest, happiest and most eye-catching pumpkin.
Importantly, these fun, interactive and creative activities also helped people with dementia to link to time and season, and provided opportunities for meaningful involvement and social interaction, bringing the local community into the care home environment, as well as taking residents out.
Now, just a few weeks left to plan for our Christmas event ...
