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.
Helen recently convened a symposium at the British Society of gerontology on ‘co-designing technologies with older people’. One of the attendees at the symposium wrote about the seminar in a blogpost. we’ve reposted it below. Thanks Karen for permission to repost here!
A good conference can help you re-assess your own work. Perhaps not in an extreme way. Perhaps more as if a torch has been aimed loosely at some previously dim and dusty corner. Sometimes a single phrase in a presentation will do it, or conversation outside the official business of the event, in the sun, over a glass of wine, say.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the latter had happened more than once during this year’s weather-blessed annual BSG Conference 2017 in Swansea. However, for me, attending my first (but certainly not last) of these events, the lightbulb moment came in a symposium led by Helen Manchester on the subject of co-designing creative technologies for later life. Manchester cited Myriam Winance’s wonderful definition of ‘care’ and I have been carrying it around in my head ever since:
‘To care is to tinker, i.e. to meticulously explore, “quibble,” test, touch, adapt, adjust, pay attention to details and change them, until a suitable arrangement (material, emotional, relational) has been reached.’ (Winance, 2010, p. 111)
My own doctoral work explores the methodological challenges of researching and evaluating arts activities intended to enhance the health and wellbeing of the community of people affected by dementia. I am interested in ideas of co-production in research and implementation of arts activities themselves. I am looking at how we uncover the mechanisms for changes that occur when an artist and people with dementia ‘do art’ in the kinds of varied and complex contexts in which arts activities take place. I am hopeful that we will find ways to recognise, capture and evaluate these changes more effectively.
I have been interviewing artists who work with people with dementia, as well as those who manage, organise, fund and commission and research or evaluate such work. Artists draw attention to flexibility and the interdependence of elements in their practice. They refer to the affective and material relationships that develop both between those involved in an arts activity and with the artistic and technical resources used. They will also often talk about the collective character of artistic encounters. A good artist, working with people with dementia, will ‘care’ in just the way that Winance describes.
Manchester and other speakers in the symposium spoke about the methodological implications of their work for co-production with people with dementia, including the need to challenge disciplinary assumptions and boundaries. All of this has pointed me to a new set of ideas I can use to explore my subject.
So, for me, the three days of BSG 2017 would have been well worth it for these thoughts alone. However, there were plenty of other highlights. In her keynote on the first day, Dawn Brooker, reflected on various elements of post-diagnostic support for people with dementia and their families, talked about her work on the Meeting Centres support programme, and reminded delegates that, rather than ‘us’ and ‘them’, there should only be ‘us’. She cited the Dementia Action Alliance’s new Dementia Statements, a rallying call to improve the lives of people living with dementia and to recognise that they shouldn’t be treated differently because of their diagnosis.
The ambitious cARTrefu Project has seen over 1000 art workshops being delivered in care home across Wales between 2015-2017 and Kat Algar-Skaifepresented exciting preliminary findings from the evaluation. Julian West and Caroline Welsh described their intuitive, adaptable, improvisational work as professional musicians on Wigmore Hall’s long-running Music for Life programme of creative workshops in care settings with people with dementia. Lots more caring and ‘tinkering’ going on in both these places, I noted. There were also interesting presentations on visual and arts-based methodologies, particularly useful in eliciting responses from research participants that might not otherwise be possible.
One of the joys of a conference spread over three days and with such a diverse programme, is that you are able follow your own interests AND leave space for the unexpected. In the last session I attended, Joachim Duyndammade an argument for the resilience-enhancing power of moral exemplars for older people. He introduced me to a series of photographic portraits – The Widows of Rawagede by photographer Suzanne Liem – capturing the faces of women who sued the Dutch government for war-crimes against their husbands committed in 1947. These hauntingly beautiful images will stick in my memory for a long time.
I also had the opportunity during the conference to present my own work in progress to a generous and thoughtful audience and to have a good discussion afterwards. The vast expanse of the University of Swansea’s Bay Campus beach, minutes from the main conference hall, let us all feel warm sand beneath our feet in between sessions. Both the catering and social activities were excellent and the academic programme over the three days was tightly and interestingly scheduled. I am very grateful to the BSG Bursaries Panel for the generous award which enabled me to attend.
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!
Helen Manchester has been invited to speak at two seminars over the next couple of months. Firstly in Edinburgh at the Moray House School of education on March 7th.
And secondly at The Institute of Education (UCL) on April 5th.
If you’re in Edinburgh or London and able to make either of these events do come and say hello!
