Wow! What a busy month it has been and so much to share with you!
Firstly, the end of May saw a great workshop planning session with the brilliant Hannah Reynolds from Imagination Dance CIC (now Hannah Stoye – she even snuck in getting married in recent weeks, as if she is not busy enough?!). We sat down, surrounded by a huge pile of props and an even bigger heap of ideas to thrash out a fun, interactive, group drama workshop plan that would include many multisensory exercises that might appeal to those living with dementia.
Pooling together our performance/ teaching skills, alongside her many years as a Movement for Memory teacher (I have been to one of her seated dance classes and they are GREAT), I felt, and continue to feel, incredibly lucky to have her onboard for this project. Hannah is an utter joy to work with whilst also knowing, and being well loved at, many of the groups I am visiting - so this provided a perfect opportunity to plan with a vast amount of ‘inside knowledge’ and learned experience.
In the end, we decided to run with the theme of ‘Escape to the Sea & Childhood Holidays’ as a widely accessible topic that also offered a wealth of seaside themed activities. It also nicely reflects our current season, although with all the rain over the last couple of weeks you could be forgiven for missing that! It is also a theme that often makes people smile… More on that later.
At the start of June, I completed my Level 1 Certificate in Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults. This was fascinating and, on a purely personal level, a little ironic. My late husband, who worked as the Child Welfare Officer for our local youth football club, spent years organising safeguarding training for many local community members but I was never involved … Earlier this month, however, I completed my own safeguarding training and there was much to learn. Firstly, do you know what qualifies as a ‘vulnerable adult’? I didn’t. It is anyone over 18 accessing social or health support – that is an enormous percentage of our adult population and thus makes this training particularly relevant to so many.
Also, having always taken a person-centred approach to my work (a gift from my mum’s extensive counselling training – many techniques and approaches she shared with both me and my sister as we grew up), I was surprised to learn how many possible types of abuse there are - physical/ verbal/ emotional/ sexual/ domestic/ psychological/ financial/ material/ discriminatory/ organisational… And this is only to name a few. Being able to spot these is what makes this training so valuable and as our ageing population is ever increasing even more necessary too.
As we neared the middle of this month, I saw all my drama workshop bookings fall into place with the project now reaching dementia groups in Watford, High Cross, Hertford, Welwyn Garden City, Baldock, Letchworth and Redbourn. And what was great to hear, is that there were even more groups that were interested in receiving a workshop! My goal has always been to get as many different areas of the county involved as I can and I’m truly delighted.
And last week, after 18 months of planning, pitching, prepping and battling for funding, my first dementia friendly drama workshop take place at All Sorts Dementia in High Cross. (Hurray, you can probably still hear me cry)! Thank you so much to Kelly Felton, Director of All Sorts, who believed in and supported this project from the start. It was a great morning with a fantastic group who came up with such brilliant ideas (written and movement based) and everyone shared individual memories/ dreams of escaping to the sea. What’s more it was a room filled with laughter and smiles.
When setting about this project, lots of people asked me “How are you going to know if what you are doing is actually working?”. Now I know. It is the smiles. Whether those taking part chose to vocally or physically interact with the activities, or simply just watch, whilst we can share eye contact, and a smile too, there is already a connection between us. A shared sense of play. And that alone brings great joy and a sense of ‘being part of something’, which can often continue long into the later stages of dementia.
This is, to me, fundamentally also the essence of theatre and why many drama specialists know that starting any session with an eye contact/ smile game is vital. After all, connection is what we all search for, and my firm belief is that is possible long after our expected methods of clearly communicating it have left us. This idea was also confirmed by several of my workshop participants who told me quietly afterwards, just as I gathered up the final props, “That was lovely”.
Onwards to my next workshops, with hopes of finding more of those precious connections and plenty of laughter too, of course.
I will report back soon.
Dementia Tip:
When initially meeting someone with dementia, or starting a conversation, offer a yes/ no question rather than an open one. 'Are you having a good morning?' can be a lot easier to understand and process (and can even be answered with a nod), rather than 'How are you today?'. And, of course, whatever their answer is - it is always the right one.
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