Residents, relatives and staff put on their ‘Creative Face’ for intergenerational workshops | News

The idea of helping people be with, and interact with others, isn’t new to us. We’ve been doing it for years. Whether they are our residents, customers or others living in the wider community throughout Sussex.

We’ve found there are many wonderful ways of bringing people together. From organising community events and setting up befriending schemes, to offering all kinds of activities, groups and initiatives.

With lockdown and government restrictions in place, bringing residents and the wider community together has been a little more challenging in recent times, but with the thanks of The Creation Station franchise, we were able to help re-connect residents with younger relatives back home.

Our latest special project involves creating collaged portraits as part of a Guinness World Record^® attempt to create the largest online photo album of collages. The record attempt is over 50,000 images. Sussex Housing & Care joined forces with The Creation Station’s ‘Our Creative Face’ campaign to showcase the creative face of the UK.

This involves children, their parents/guardians and elder relatives, creating a collage of a portrait. Images are then uploaded to the website www.ourcreativeface where they are checked that they follow the record guidelines, and they are officially entered into the record attempt!

 

   

Residents at Saxonwood care home in Battle and Oakwood Court care home, Haywards Heath connected with relatives, staff, families and children. The experience was very enlightening and emotional. The activity was designed to be inclusive, fun and encourage interaction, building on the positive resources that young and older people have to offer each other and those around them. But little did we know how captivating this latest venture would turn out to be!

Relative, Emily who joined the session with Saxonwood said “Thanks for a lovely event, it was great to chat and to see everyone”. In the meantime, Evelyn and Peggy, residents at Oakwood Court, joined up with Evelyn’s grand daughters Hannah aged 2 and Isabelle, 13 who tuned into the workshop from home on zoom. Evelyn even said during the session “We need this!”. Lots of fun and belly laughter was enjoyed by all as we created our portraits and connected with relatives. Care assistant Charley added, “it was lovely to be part of and we look forward to running more intergenerational workshops in the future”.

  

Alix Purton, franchisee at The Creation Station said, “It was a pleasure to work with residents at Sussex Housing & Care. During the sessions there was lots of chat and laughter from everyone involved. It was lovely to meet all the participants and to get an insight into life in your wonderful care homes. Thank you all for your fun and enthusiasm; your collages are amazing! Fingers crossed for the world record!”

These are are our creations. We hope they help bring a smile to your face and you enjoy our creations as much as we had making them!

  

Plans are currently being put together to hold the next intergenerational workshop at Woodlands care home in Crowborough. We look forward to running more of these sessions in the future!