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We work with older people receiving care across Leicester and Leicestershire

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dompalmer

October 9, 2019 By dompalmer

Baking a Difference – a celebration

We were sad to see the end of our Baking a Difference project working with Planet Leicester Bakers recently and so we chose to celebrate it in the only way we knew how – with an afternoon tea in a care setting. We welcomed activities staff and volunteers from other care settings across Leicestershire to enjoy cakes, scones and speciality breads.

Alongside multiple cups of tea, we enjoyed lots of catching up and conversations, as well as the showing of our film showcasing the project, which you can see here.

Older people who had taken part in the project were particularly pleased to welcome Cameron on the keyboard to accompany the tea party by playing some beautiful light classical music in the background too.

The final report of Baking a Difference will be available shortly.

The ‘How to’ videos are available here so that you too can learn how to exploit the loveliness of bread for the benefit of older people you care for or for your own enjoyment. Do please let us know what you think of the hedgehogs, snakes and science on offer!

Our thanks, as ever, to Michelle Stratford from Planet Leicester Bakers for all of her time, thought and skill in delivering this project in conjunction with our team, as well as to all the staff, residents and volunteers who have been involved over the last year or so too.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

October 9, 2019 By dompalmer

Art with Heart

Art with Heart is a project focused on supporting those with dementia to explore arts and culture from around the world, including art, language and poetry.

Learning for the Fourth Age were delighted to receive funding from the Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation to cover sessions in two care settings with a specialist in both dementia and creative arts.

Our thanks to Vicky Olivera for taking the time to plan, organise and deliver the sessions At Agnes House and St George’s care homes and special thanks to our volunteer Safooraa for supporting these sessions, which were well received by staff and residents alike.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

October 9, 2019 By dompalmer

William House Art Group

We set up an art group with residents in William House sheltered housing unit (a part of Wyggeston’s Hospital) a few years ago and our volunteers and staff have supported the residents there ever since.

However, during conversations with the artists there, it became clear that many of them would like to learn new skills on external courses and to bring these back to the group, as well as to try and celebrate all the art that they have created and achieved over the years.

We were delighted to receive a grant of £850 from the Barchester Charitable Foundation to cover the cost of new art equipment, framing existing work so that people could share and celebrate it and to pay for courses in the community for the group’s artists to develop their skills.

Now the pictures are out of storage folders, framed and proudly displayed on walls around the sheltered housing unit that they all live in. Residents report learning new skills, improved social connections, a sense of pride in their achievements and enjoyment.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

November 14, 2018 By dompalmer

Heartwarming Intergenerational Baking

In the light of the recent “Care Home for Four Year Olds” documentary being shown on Channel 4, we are proud and delighted to be piloting bringing similarly heartwarming intergenerational work to care settings in Leicester.

So far, our Baking a Difference project is bringing together nursery children from Blossoms Day Nursery and South Lodge care home to make, create and eat gorgeous bread, as well as to share time, stories and new experiences together.

Having been busy baking, the nursery children brought in Diwali present of bread sticks dipped in icing and sprinkles (above) for the care home residents to enjoy.

Having finished a fun hedgehog roll baking session, Michelle from Planet Leicester Bakers tweeted: “Wonderful hour with nursery children and ‘The Grannies’ from a #BakingaDifference care home yesterday. They finished creating and decorated their hedgehog buns and then had a sing along while they baked. #carehome #dementia #community #specialtreat @Learning4thAge ” 

We are very excited indeed to see the project developing in this way and to be bringing generations together in this way in order to create, develop and strengthen community connections between people and places. We hope to be able to do much more of this during the project.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

November 14, 2018 By dompalmer

Diwali celebrations

We were really pleased to be working closely with members of the local community to run sessions in three different care homes making Diwali garlands during the recent festivities. Working with fantastic groups of students from the University of Leicester, we were keen to ensure that the long cultural tradition of marking the Festival of Light was spread to an older audience here in the city.

Lots of fun was had by everyone involved in our Diwali wreath making workshops, including this duo in Evington!

An abundance of flowers were created in total and these were used as decorations at the university afterwards… (although residents of care homes have since been asking what happened to the beautiful flowers and whether they could have them back if they have finished being used for the festival itself as they enjoyed them so much!)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

November 14, 2018 By dompalmer

Art Groups Ongoing

The close concentration (caught on camera) of these two wonderful older women in sheltered housing as they enjoyed one of our regular art groups. Over the years, we have seen that painting is therapeutic and mindful for many people of all ages but particularly for people as they age.

We are delighted to have volunteers visiting older people across Leicester and Leicestershire regularly to support L4A’s ongoing art and craft groups. From Market Harborough to Quorn, we will try to support care settings to provide learning and arts activities for their residents.

Collaborating closely, residents of one extra care unit each create a separate part of these designs using lino printing techniques and then combine them together to form a final finished piece that is more than the sum of the separate parts.

These beautiful birds have been proudly painted by Neil who really enjoys the regular art group we host in his sheltered housing unit, even if he is usually the only male attending it. He has proudly framed this series of gorgeous British birds he has produced and we think that he is right to be proud of his work.

Doreen is very proud of her sunflowers and spent time studying Van Gogh’s original in order to create her own interpretation here at her own art group.

Of course, at L4A, we don’t mind if you’re recreating original masterpieces or inventing your own but we are delighted to be supporting so many older artists across Leicester and Leicestershire to feel proud of what they draw, paint, sketch, print, chalk, ink and much much more with us each and every week.

We are always looking for more volunteers to support our art groups across the city and county, or even to start new ones so please do get in touch with us via email or here if you think you could help out at all, or if you would like to support our work in another way – we’d love to hear from you!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

November 14, 2018 By dompalmer

First Time for Everything

Here at L4A, we believe that there is a first time for everything and, when we strive to enhance quality of life in care homes for older people, we are keen to ensure that people think outside the box and remain able to try new things.

To this end, we were delighted to host a recent RVS (Royal Voluntary Service) ‘First Time for Everything’ session bringing together residents from Agnes House care home and William House sheltered housing recently in a shared autumnal painting activity.

As well as learning new painting and colour techniques, the session was a huge success in bringing people together, helping people to share new learning experiences and having lots of fun.

At L4A, we always love to work with other charities and organisations too so please do get in touch with us (here: info@l4a.org.uk ) if you have some areas of shared interest that we could work on together.

RVS (Royal Voluntary Service) is a national charity built on local volunteering, giving support to people who need it in NHS hospitals and communities.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

November 14, 2018 By dompalmer

Art with Heart

We are delighted to be running a small pilot project called Art with Heart exploring different artistic cultural styles with people who have dementia and memory loss.

The first Art with Heart session took place on Saturday 10th November at Agnes House in Wyggeston’s Hospital in Leicester.

The theme was Africa and they talked about Africa, looked at typical African design motifs and then had a go at copying or designing and painting their own. The group looked at bold colours and striking patterns and worked together to create a series of distinct designs of their own.

The session was led by Vicky, a very experienced artist and longstanding L4A volunteer and she was supported with the help of student volunteers Safooraa and Asra.

The theme for the next session is South America and we look forward to seeing the results.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ArtWithHeart, dementia

September 30, 2017 By dompalmer

We’ve Baked A Difference

After 12 successful pilot sessions in three different care settings, the Baking a Difference project has sadly come to a close. For now.

Having conducted experiments about yeast and gluten, learned how to create our own sourdough starters and discussed our own individual personal histories with bread, we plaited, kneaded and ate our way through all sorts of dough.

As well as being great fun, Baking a Difference workshops proved to be bonding and sociable for everyone involved. The smell of freshly baked rolls wafting through the home brought staff, visitors and other residents to see the activities underway and prompted many to join in future sessions.

We are grateful to our partners Planet Leicester Bakers for their thoughtful input into planning and delivery the sessions to two nursing homes and a sheltered housing unit, sensitively tailoring the workshops for the individuals living within each environment.

There is a report about the work that we did, including lessons learned and ideas for future development, available here: BAKING A DIFFERENCE END OF PILOT PROJECT REVIEW

We would love to receive any feedback from you about this project and it’s work so please do get in touch with us.

Filed Under: Projects

September 11, 2017 By dompalmer Leave a Comment

Patchwork Project

Learning for the Fourth Age is privileged to work with lots of different older people in many different and varied care settings. However, some are very closely located and we have been keen to bring people together from different settings for shared learning activities for a while.

By working closely with the wonderful staff at Harley Grange and Ashlands care homes, we are proud to have brought together residents from both settings to share the craft activities that they had undertaken together and produced a shared piece of work – the patchwork! Plenty of tea, coffee and biscuits were also enjoyed too.

The patchwork project has been led by Anita Barrand with support from volunteers Jean Helps and Dee Lehan-Matthews and staff from both homes. We are keen to explore other ways of helping to bring the outside in and take residents out in going forwards, particularly when we can support people to learn about different people and cultures. Watch this space!

Filed Under: Projects Tagged With: Ashlands, Care home, Craft, Harley Grange, Patchwork

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