We decided to recognise five events that responded in creative and inspiring ways to this year’s theme of Reflections as well as embodying the message of our Year of Connected Communities 2023, having teamwork and creative connections at the heart of their activities. The five winning entries will each receive £100 tokens to spend on arts materials and all finalists will receive certificates.
“As our residents have a passion for music and as they built incredible relationships with music therapist Phil Evans from Attune Music, over his twelve years of working at The Highgate, we have collaborated with Phil on a music-based project this year. We named our project ‘Reflections: Colour Your Life with Music’ with our focus being to use the music and songs that hold special meaning to our residents and highlight them through different forms of artistic expression”
Fieona Connolly, Deputy Manager Highgate Care Home
“ Residents across 10 of our care homes had a wonderful time getting together and writing their own poetry with the theme Reflections – and then creating some wonderful artwork to go with it. We really saw the benefits to the residents and staff that took part whether being a main contributor or just enjoying listening and watching everyone else at work. The residents and activity organisers are very proud of this project as it incorporates many aspects of activities including, craft, creative writing, artwork, painting, social engagement, promoting independence, community engagement, and more.
“ We made handmade journals using scrap materials and mixed media techniques and will use our completed journals for reflection and memory keeping. We used random letters of the alphabet to find words to describe ourselves and learned a lot about each other in the process. We also celebrated our hands and agreed that while they might not look as good as they used to they’ve served us well. Another activity was to reflect on our favourite things in nature. We also asked “what do you love most in this world”, and everyone gave the same response: “my family”.
“Day 2 of celebrating Art and we had a fun afternoon giving ourselves… makeovers., We used watercolours, acrylic, pastels and a collage to transform our pics. Tess says she’s had many hair colours over the years but never yellow and blue. Ray is not sure a pink beard is quite the think either!”
“We have got our residents, and their families and friends involved in making a Reflections memory board. From this we have produced and published our very own newspaper with individual articles from residents and staff. We absolutely loved taking part in the arts in care homes, our newspaper has been viewed and shared by many relatives and friends of Eric Morecambe house.”
Thank you very much to every one that took part in The National Day of Arts in Care Homes 2023 and took the time to register their events. There were several wonderful projects and activities that weren’t eligible for prizes as they hadn’t been registered on our website. Next year please remember to register your event!
