The new academic year has kicked off with a new bi-monthly Parlours of Wonder partnership between residents of Blaise Weston Court and some visiting pupils from Our Lady of the Rosary RC VC Primary School in Lawrence Weston. Seven pupils will be visiting the Parlours of Wonder room at Blaise Weston Court twice a month over the coming year and we hope it will be a satisfying experience for residents and pupils.
We’ve been working with Y5 pupils at St Stephen’s C of E Junior School in Bristol over the last 4 months because they have been regularly visiting nearby Deerhurst care home to participate in intergenerational activities with some of the residents. We, the research team at Bristol University, together with the gifted activities coordinator at Deerhurst and the Alive! activities presenter, Niki, have delighted in watching how the pupils have grown in confidence over the sessions. We have also delighted in watching how relationships have developed among those participating to the point that when an older resident is not present at a session their absence is immediately commented upon by the pupils and they are much missed. As the teacher who has been escorting the pupils to the Parlour of Wonder sessions reflected at the end of term that: “We have built up some very special bonds with the residents and staff of the care home and we hope to continue to work with them in the future.”
I certainly hope so; long may it continue!
Meanwhile, here are some of my favourite photos from the Parlour of Wonder with the St Stephen’s pupils:
It’s been a busy month at Britannia day care centre in Clevedon. Those who frequent Britannia on Mondays will have had the pleasure of meeting 6 confident, cheerful Y5 pupils from nearby Mary Elton Primary School. The pupils have been participating in Parlour of Wonder sessions led by Gill at Alive! activities. The sessions focus on intergenerational co-learning, sharing and discovery.
The pupils also used the Tangible Memories app on ipads to visually and audibly document their experiences of school, which they shared with older day care visitors who reflected how some things have changed and how other aspects of school life haven’t since they were at were themselves at primary school.
We hope that the pupils will return to Britannia next academic year, but meanwhile, we hope they and the day care centre users have a wonderful summer!
Hand-clapping games have ruled the school play ground for centuries, but who knew they were such a wonderful inter-generational facilitator in care homes, as well as tried and tested social bonding activities between friends in the playground?
During the first Parlours of Wonder sessions held in our partner care settings between residents and local school pupils, it was the hand-clapping games that provoked the most memories, conversation and physical interaction between residents and pupils! …Just like the proverb informs us, “you can’t clap with one hand only.”
I was amazed at how enthusiastically the Year 5 pupils responded to older residents recalling the songs that accompanied their hand-clapping games when they were young, such as, ‘A Sailor Went to Sea Sea Sea’ and ‘My Mother Told Me (Rubber Dolly)’ . The older residents were also entertained by some contemporary versions that pupils confidently gave renditions of, however, whilst the lyrics might have changed across generations, the basic hand-clapping sequences had not.
Hand-clapping accompanied by singing, was an activity that facilitated interaction between the school pupils and older residents, because it is an activity shared across the generations strongly associated with childhood and school, as well as being valuable because it is a physical, multisensory activity that does not exclude those with restricted mobility, hearing or vision impairment, nor those with dementia. To that we say, put your hands together and applaud (loudly!)
One of our project partners, Blaise Weston Court extra care facility, held an Open Day on Friday 31st March. It provided an invaluable opportunity to meet a group of Year 5 pupils from a local primary school (Oasis Long Cross) who will be participating in our Parlours of Wonder project after the Easter break.
The pupils were intrigued by the objects they found in the Parlour of Wonder room located on the ground floor of Blaise Weston Court. A series of boxes that are chronologically labelled with the different decades through the Twentieth century particularly grabbed their attention. They rummaged in the boxes and marvelled at landline telephone sets, black and white family photographs from the 1930s, workmen’s tools and various board games, but the biggest surprise and wonder was reserved for the record player, vinyl records and bed warming pan. A female pupil who had never seen vinyl records before suggested they were “giant DVDs” and one of the boys, puzzled, like the other pupils, over the bed warming pan. When one of the residents at Blaise Weston Court asked them what they thought it was, nearly all of the pupils suggested it was a pizza oven!
These responses made us all laugh out loud because we all appreciated in that moment how much we take for granted with regards to the objects we encounter and use in our daily lives. We also reflected upon how quickly a number of these objects change or become obsolete.
After a very enjoyable hour or so the pupils returned to their school escorted by one of their teachers, who later emailed us to report that:”the children were buzzing after last Friday’s visit. They spent the walk back trying to work out all the historical events that would have happened while Barry has been alive!” (Barry is one of the participating residents on the Parlours of Wonder project)
Meeting the pupils from Oasis Long Cross was a delight for all involved and reminds us of the importance and value of intergenerational interaction, story telling and knowledge exchange. Long may it continue!
The 1st of March is a significant date in the British calendar this year; the feast day of St. David (the Patron Saint of Wales) and also, for many households up and down the country, a reason for eating too many pancakes (Ash Wednesday)!
But for Helen and I, it was also a special day because we paid a visit to St. Stephen’s CoE junior school to meet 6 wonderful Y5 pupils who had been selected to participate on our Parlours of Wonder project. These pupils’ parents and guardians had also generously given their consent so that their child can participate in activities with older residents at Deerhurst care home in Soundwell, Bristol. We will be running these activities and visits over the following months.
The pupils were adept at using ipads and the StoryCreator app so we think they will be confident at helping the older residents at Deerhurst navigate the technology. Some of the pupils have experience of visiting a relative in care and/or with dementia and Helen and I found their views on dementia and care homes fascinating. Without naming the pupils, one told us that a care home is not a prison because prisons have “mean guards” but care homes “have people taking care” and another pupil who visits a grandparent in a care home said when they go to the care home “I see nature and it’s very pretty”.
So we think they’re going to love visiting Deerhurst and the residents because it’s a vibrant, caring community with many activities for residents that involve nature and being outside…the pupils were very excited to learn of the beach at Deerhurst!
It was a privilege to meet the pupils and their dedicated teacher Ms Lowrie!
Yesterday, although Valentine’s Day, was an exciting day for the Parlours of Wonder project despite the mood for love clearly evident across the city, because our partners joined us at our department, the Graduate School of Education, at Bristol university, for a workshop focused on sharing our experience of working with objects and technology in care settings, as well as sharing innovative approaches to intergenerational activities. By pooling resources and experience, and consolidating alliances with project partners and beyond, we were especially keen to generate solutions for the ongoing challenges that care staff face when working with volunteers and delivering in-house, intergenerational activities. We hope that yesterday’s workshop marked a step in the right direction and left project partners feeling invigorated and inspired to continue their great work across the region.
…So thank you to all those who came and participated, even on your day off AND on Saint Valentine’s day; we hope you enjoyed the love hearts!
What’s in a name? Do the names we give to projects and collaborative initiatives matter? These may seem like banal or odd questions but they are proving to be important to consider when undertaking a co-designed collaborative project; as we have found out early on in the Parlours of Wonder co-design process.
For the last two weeks Bristol University researchers, digital design partners and residents, day centre users and care staff have been coming together for co-design meetings at 3 care settings across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.
We all met up to discuss the initial designs for a ‘Parlour of Wonder’ that were created from our initial co-design meetings before Christmas. The responses to the initial design ideas created by Stand + Stare clearly demonstrate that the name ‘Parlour of Wonder’ is not insignificant, rather, it is a name that is far from inconsequential.
When Stand + Stare showed assembled care staff, residents and day centre users the initial designs and asked for feedback it was clear that ‘Parlours of Wonder’ conjured something quite specific in each person’s mind and how diverse these expectations were!
As a research team we were interested in ‘re-imagining the parlour for the 21st century’ – taking the idea of a ‘cabinet of curiosity’ or ‘wonder room’ but making the design of this a more inclusive process. However, for our partners, the project title ‘Parlours of Wonder’ conjures up domestic spaces circa the 1940s, for others, an image of cabaret and feather boas, whilst for some it’s a playful space crammed full of colourful stuff. We found no one was associating the project with a “modern” space.
When we introduced our initial ideas one member of the care staff team asked: “This cabinet is a modern style, but presumably you could make it look older?” This question and others like it from other care staff was very revealing about individual expectations that arise from the ‘Parlour of Wonder’ as a project title and concept.
So whilst those managers who are setting aside a room within their care setting and those gathered who use the care settings’ services seem to associate ‘Parlours of Wonder’ with something ‘old’, for ourselves and our design partners, these Parlour of Wonder spaces are not necessarily so, for both practical reasons (to accommodate the storage and use of ipads with the Story Creator app) but also related to ideas of disruptive design, where we see benefit in thinking differently about what care home spaces might look like, feel like and what they might contain within them.
These initial experiences, then, have led us all to wondering whether the name of the project is misleading and has led to expectations the design team feel they cannot fulfil. With this in mind we are all keen to see what evolves from the latest round of co-design meetings with regards to the Parlour of Wonder design itself, but also, were we to change the name of the project, what would be most suitable? …Watch this space!
Below are photos from two of our co-design meetings where the designers, Stand + Stare, are sharing their designs with residents and care staff. The colour red was a popular choice chosen from the Valchromat samples supplied by the designers, who are considering this material in order to make the cabinets to go into each Parlour of Wonder.
Since the project began in November 2016 we have been busy with team meetings at the three partner care settings located in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucester. The aim of these meetings has been to bring together the diverse project partners: designers (Lucy and Barney Heywood), ourselves (academics at the University of Bristol), the care setting manager(s), staff, volunteers and last, but by far from least, the residents or day care visitors themselves, in order to discuss the space within each care setting most appropriate for a Parlour of Wonder.
In our informal meetings we have been keen to hear what the residents and/or day care visitors would like to see in a Parlour of Wonder and what they think one should be. Subsequently, we have been asking them many questions – some could say, too many!
This project values and prioritises the processes of co-design and co-production, meaning, quite simply, we are keen for those who are going to be the users and keepers of a Parlour of Wonder to be deeply involved in the design and production process from the start. We certainly don’t want designers and researchers coming into each care setting imposing what they think those in each care setting would like a Parlour of Wonder to be and look like! However, whilst, our co-design and co-production principles are well meant, in reality, they remain very challenging to implement and maintain (but more on this at a later date).
Barney is measuring the dimensions of the room identified for a Parlour of Wonder at a care setting in Bristol. He was grateful for a resident’s assistance in this process, whilst Lucy continued asking other residents for their ideas on how the room should be transformed into a Parlour.
So far, much of this co-design process has involved talking with residents in small groups in each care setting and asking them probing questions such as: If you had a room designed for relaxing with visitors what would it look like? What furniture would it contain? What would the walls look like? What furniture is comfortable for you? These questions will help the designers to come up with some mock-up designs that we will then take back to each care setting and ask the staff and residents/day care visitors to comment on. We are aiming to hold these meetings in late January 2017 and we’re all excited about what the designers mock-ups for a Parlour of Wonder might look like…so watch this space!
…Meanwhile, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
