New Year, New Resources

A strong focus of the project in the New Year is the development of some new resources and activities to support home carers and people living with dementia at home.

We are busy developing and trialing new ideas and Memory Cafe members in Cornwall have been very helpful in trying out these activities for us at the cafes and at home.  We want to ensure that we produce good quality activities that support dementia care at home, that engage people together and encourage people to go outside, get some fresh air, feel better in themselves and hopefully have the chance to socially interact with other people.  So far the feedback from users has been very positive; even people who wouldn't normally do creative activities at home have said how much they enjoyed spending meaningful time with their partner in their own garden and house and that they were already thinking of how they could adapt certain activities for the festive season.

A selection of these resources will be available for free at our forthcoming community events in 2013.  We are organising 3 large events in June next year in partnership with Age UK. These events are aimed at people living with dementia in the community, home carers, families and friends and outreach care workers.  The theme, of course, is outside spaces and activities and there will be a wide variety of creative activities for people to try, films to watch and advice and information from organisations that support people with dementia. It's a great opportunity for us to reach people who perhaps don't yet make the best use of their own garden or local green spaces as places to support dementia care and, in the case of public spaces, where they can get involved in social activities that help to reduce feelings of isolation and depression.

We'll keep you up-to-date with news of these events nearer the time.

So in the meantime I hope you enjoy the following photos of some of the highlights from this year. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!


Wendy
Creative Spaces Project Manager

staff and residents created a Garden Book at Trevarna

Ernie and Ethan were interviewed for a short film

Beryl's family added interest to the garden with a beautiful
bird bath and feeder

Nature Palettes - always a favourite!

Bulb planting...Sensory Trust style

People gathered at the official garden opening...despite
rain and thunder

Our roaming exhibition travelled around the St. Austell
community

Community workshops brought people
together in creative ways

Natural materials play a big part in our activities

A table set up ready for memory cafe members........
5 minutes later it was a free-for-all!

Staff and residents joined in the community
planting days at Trevarna

Trevarna residents and staff enjoyed the sunshine...
in March!

 

National Lottery Awards - vote now!

There's a mixture of mayhem and jubilation in the office at the moment.  Creative Spaces has been short-listed for a National Lottery Award!  Along with 9 other projects we are in the semi finals for the Best Health  Project category and up for public voting.

This means that from yesterday until midnight on the 22nd July we need your help to get this project through to the final and to have the opportunity to raise awareness on a national scale of all that the project has achieved.

And by that I mean the achievements by everyone involved; the people with dementia, the young people, carers (professional and non-professional), volunteers, community members and health and social care professionals in Cornwall who have all contributed to the success of the project, as well as our combined team of the Sensory Trust and Cornwall Care.


Please support us and help us to highlight this project and the importance of outdoor environments in reconnecting people with dementia with their communities and increasing public understanding.


You can vote through the National Lottery Awards website or phone 0844 836 9705


Thank you for your support; fingers crossed!








Wendy
Creative Spaces Project Manager

Palettes - naturally brilliant!

We've added another free, downloadable activity sheet to our Creative Spaces resources on the website.  This time it's for 'Nature Palettes'; a timeless activity that will help you to engage people with dementia, either individually or in a group, in an outdoor setting. A great activity for all seasons you can use it to build new memories as well as re-connecting with old memories and familiar places.

You can cram your palettes with all kinds of colours, smells, textures, shapes and sizes found outside at any time of the year; so it goes without saying that it's fun too!  Create competitions (the most colourful palette, the most unusual palette), see how many items you can stick on them, make autumn and winter palettes, be the first to find a green petal or simply enjoy wandering through your local woods/park/lane and gathering natural materials for your palette as you go.

Just click on the link on the top right hand corner and it will take you through to our 'factsheets' page. Happy hunting!

busy, busy, busy!

It's been a busy few weeks in the project.  This is what we've been up to since our last blog:

We've finally started to plant out the beds in the courtyard garden.  We began with a planting session for the local school students who have been involved for the past 2 years.  As well as planting Heucheras in one bed, they decorated large pots and filled them with a whole range of plants including Osteospermums, Begonias, Wallflowers and Stock.  These pots and plants mark the introduction of colour, texture and height in the garden which will be joined by many others as the beds are prepared and planted over the coming weeks.  We will also be adding stand alone raised planters but we won't be planting those - they're for the residents to use for their own gardening interests.

budding artists add colour and memories to the garden

Trevarna staff hosted a summer fete in early August and were joined by young people from The House (a local youth centre). The young people baked cakes beforehand and sold them on their own stall to help the home raise funds. This is a new partnership that my colleague Ellie has developed over the past few months. These young people will take responsibility for looking after an old, underused vegetable plot at Trevarna, where they will grow vegetables to use in collaborative projects with the home.

half an hour later this table was empty!

I've been out around the county visiting more Cornwall Care homes (that's 11 in total now) and chatting with managers and staff about the current and potential use of their outdoor spaces; particularly in the role of engaging residents with the community.  Once the visits are completed in September I'll prepare a report for Cornwall Care which will go to each care home with recommendations on how to use their gardens to engage more with the community.

Trips to garden centres and nurseries are more frequent now that we're into the phrase of purchasing plants for the garden at Trevarna. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it! Several plants have now joined the Heucheras that the local students planted in the prepared bed.  It's beginning to feel like a garden again after so much time spent on the hard landscaping. Which, by the way, is just about finished in the courtyard and work has started in earnest in the front garden, where most of the community events will take place.

planting begins in the courtyard

one point of access up to the garden wall

On August 19th and 20th we held two dementia awareness workshops, with our partners Cornwall Care, for people in the community.  We'll be preparing a report on these workshops soon so I won't go into too much detail for now. The first workshop was for local businesses and service providers whilst the second was aimed at home carers.  Both were extremely fun to do and, looking at the feedback forms, very successful.  One lady emailed us after with this comment:

Please thank everyone for such a great morning last Saturday – it was the best event for information and ideas that we have been to around the issues of dementia care.  Mum and I enjoyed it very much and are so glad we came. Many thanks; we look forward to the next one.

When people take the time to send such a lovely message; it spurs us on to do greater things.

With that in mind, I would like to say "Thank you" to all those people who have been downloading our dementia activity and fact sheets through the Creative Spaces page on our website.  We're delighted that you are interested in using the sheets; it's a sign that we're not only providing the right information but confirms that there is a real need for supportive techniques such as these in dementia care. We hope you enjoy them and we'd be delighted to hear from anyone who has used any of the activities; let us know if using them has had any impact on yourself as well as others. Now go - do greater things!

engage people using scrap books, nature palettes & fortune-tellers 

Wendy Brewin
Creative Spaces Project Manager

Free! New activity ideas and factsheets

We have developed new FREE factsheets and activity sheets as part of our Creative Spaces project. There's information on how to engage people with dementia with their communities and ideas for activities. Follow the link below, answer two simple questions and download for free!

http://www.sensorytrust.org.uk/projects/creative_spaces/resources_1.asp