Arts In Care Homes Day 2021: Spotlight on Leeds

Written by members of Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network

Leeds has long been interested in supporting broad engagement in the arts and exploring benefits for health, with organisations in the city having decades of experience. Most recently Time To Shine has worked with a range of organisations, using arts approaches as part of their programmes to combat social isolation and loneliness in later life.

In 2021 Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network has brought people together as part of a series of webinars, to explore how care homes can benefit from arts and culture online supported by 100% Digital Leeds and Care Delivery Services. We have also launched our Creative Ageing Forum in partnership with artists, arts organisations, health and care professionals exploring how arts and culture play a role in an Age Friendly City where people age well. The forum brings together a wealth of experience and appetite for collaboration across our city and wider region. We have showcased diverse projects such as Reasons To be Hopeful, an intergenerational project engaging care home residents, alongside other people identified as most likely to experience loneliness, in mixed art activities such as singing, drawing and textiles.

Existing relationships between care homes and arts organisations have led to new work that focuses on the wellbeing of care home staff as well as residents - such as Dance Down Memory Lane by Balbir Singh Dance Company, which has used film and dance to prompt connection between people and to their wider community. To follow are some reflections on our joined-up approach and highlights of Arts in Care Homes in Leeds from Jo Bailey, Wellbeing and Activities Co-ordinator and Catherine Smethurst, Operational Development Manager in our Care Delivery Service.

Do residents in care settings and care staff in Leeds want access to relevant creative and cultural opportunities on a daily basis?

Jo: “Yes! A few weeks ago we had a visit from Leeds Playhouse's travelling show - Fairy Poppins - on a truck where the sides come down and the actors inside the truck perform a play. It was really well done and a few residents came to me and said 'we are so glad they've come to us because we can't get to them ... they’ve remembered us.' You can’t beat the experience of face-to-face.”

Catherine: “Definitely. Residents in care settings have embraced any opportunities to take part in creative and cultural opportunities. Feedback surveys indicate that people would love to have access to more activities generally and have been delighted when they have taken part (whether through in-house support to take part in craft activities or interactive Zoom sessions with museums and galleries, libraries, dance organisations, poetry, theatre or other arts activities).”

How are we embedding this into care provision in Leeds?

Jo: “I look after six care homes and before the pandemic I arranged regular trips for residents to all the dementia-friendly performances. I work closely with Yorkshire Dance, who have an older persons project manager, and they are running 10 weekly sessions of music and movement with residents. I train care home staff (in all departments) in creative engagements and I say, at its most basic level, if your residents look happy then you are doing a good job, if not, do something about it!”

Catherine: “To give an example Joan, who lives in a care home and who had always wanted to act, joined Leeds Playhouse’s “Reasons to be Hopeful” programme and performance – followed by a visit to Leeds Playhouse in person when it was possible. She is still in touch and hopes to continue her activities with Leeds Playhouse – it will be a great support as her care home closes and she moves to a new one. It led to a meeting with a befriending group connected with Leeds Playhouse – made up of musicians, actors and other creative people who meet with some of the residents in a different care home each week on Zoom – they talk, sing and make friends with people who are restricted in their opportunities to get out and about. Another example is the partnership with Together With Music, who have supported care homes to make and renew connections with schools through musical events.

Yorkshire Dance also offer weekly chair-based dance classes in partnership with Leeds’ Care Services, which regularly attract up to 50 participants on Zoom. The care teams have seen the benefits of exercise, music, entertainment and connections and have promoted the events, making use of the themes to continue creative opportunities in between sessions (such as prompting discussions or through art and crafts activities).

In our day services we already use daily opportunities to access creative and cultural opportunities – such as our Complex Needs Services leading a weekly online knit and natter meeting.”

Any examples of practical steps and local partnerships that enable this in Leeds?

Jo: “I love Fragments Leeds. Their facilitator, Lily Craig, I’ve known for a long time and she approached me with the idea for an installation. The result - Bringing the Outside In - created a pop-up park within a care home lounge. We all got so much from it and it inspired a permanent garden room in one of the end rooms in the care settings.

Also Opera North did the first dementia-friendly opera - I worked with Alice Gilmour on their production of La Boheme; bringing singers into our homes as part of a programme across dementia cafes.”

Catherine: “Having community engagement workers across the service allows us to make new connections, share the experience of customers and their families, staff, volunteers, and students.”

Jo and Catherine’s recommendations for people looking to develop creativity with people they work with:

● Ask people what they want

● Build your network - sometimes it is not what you know it’s who you know - get your connections going on Twitter and through joining mailing lists for local and national organisations. Use networks such as Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network (LAHWN) to meet others and share ideas, experience and opportunities

● Encourage people to try something different - Jo says “I tell my managers - trust me!”

● Base what you do on your strengths – as individuals and as part of a group - and make the most of what you’ve got. For example through Leeds International Piano Competition Jo got support to make use of the pianos in care homes by bringing in volunteer piano players.

● Build a strong digital offer to support people who are often excluded to access far wider opportunities.

Our case study above was requested by NAPA (National Activity Providers Association) and Arts in Care Homes Day for their national report on having a daily offer of creativity and culture in care homes. Read it here.