L4A

We work with older people receiving care across Leicester and Leicestershire

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Special Movie Matinee spreads that glorious feeling!

‘Grand as owt!’ – a lovely comment made by an audience member after the movie matinee of Singing in the Rain’ – a unique event organised as part of our Social Prescribing project by L4A and Friends of Evington.

Fun and fond memories were shared by 40 delighted film lovers enjoying this ‘feel good’ classic at Evington Park House, and in all of its technicolour glory! With a mobile film unit hired from the Phoenix Theatre- a huge 10 foot screen, high definition film stock and quality ‘surround sound’ the Panel Room was transformed into a comfy cinema for the afternoon.

The idea for this special screening was inspired by Lionel Oakley, a participant on L4A’s Social Prescribing Project whose love of film he shared with his dear late wife Joyce.  Lionel recalls “ ‘Whilst courting we regularly went to the pictures (or ‘the flicks’ as we sometimes called them) because back in our day that’s how we entertained ourselves. Once, after watching ‘Singing in the Rain’ at the Odeon in town we walked home up the High Street. It had been raining heavily that evening so with careless abandon we splashed in the puddles, dancing and laughing all the way at our own, funny renditions of songs from the film. It was a beautiful moment and one that I still cherish to this day.’

 

‘It’s been an honour to share my love of film with friends and neighbours, bringing the cinema to our doorstep for everyone in the local community to enjoy. I was pleased as punch with the turnout and I’d love to do this again. I’m sure with Anita’s help we’ll be able to make this happen. ‘What a Glorious Feeling’ that would be!’

 

And we will! L4A’s Social Prescribing Project hopes to work in partnership with the Downing Drive Patient Group to plan another exciting social event soon.

To find out more please contact L4A Project Coordinator Anita Barrand on 07964 091693 or email Anita.Barrand@l4a.org.

 

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Street Orchestra of London

Learning for the Fourth Age was delighted to be able to invite the Street Orchestra of London to Wyggeston’s Hospital for a special musical performance on Friday 14th July. This special event lasted around one hour and had an attendance of almost 50 people living in the sheltered flats, William House, and the care home next door, Agnes House.

It was wonderful to see the responses of older people living at the fantastic Wyggeston’s Hospital – from John conducting the orchestra to half of the audience getting up and dancing at the end and those with memory loss tapping their hands along instinctively with the music. Here is a short video of John in his element – best to listen with the sound on if you can: Video

After years of working together successfully with DMU‘s Square Mile and other projects, we were delighted to be offered the opportunity to host this event. The opportunity came about as an extension of DMU’s ground-breaking partnership with the Philharmonia Orchestra and we hope to be able to do more work with DMU’s music development in the future.

The Street Orchestra of London is founded on the belief that every human being has an equal right to enjoy quality live music. Symphonic music should sound everywhere and anyone should be able to come into contact with it. More information is available about them and their great work here.

The Street Orchestra of London is a project created and conducted by one of the Philharmonia Orchestra musicians that creates pop-up orchestral performances playing pieces of all conceivable styles. SOL strives to bring orchestral music to everyone, to every possible audience and in every possible location. The creative team behind SOL includes Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of the legendary composer, Sergi Prokofiev)!

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Enhancing Wellbeing Transforming Lives Together

Melissa March, our CEO, was delighted to be invited to attend the Leicester Academy for the Study of Ageing (LASA) exciting event, “Enhancing Wellbeing, Transforming Lives Together” on 11th July at King Power Stadium.

However, we were all surprised and amazed when she returned with an oversized cheque for £2,500 and the exciting opportunity to work with other to pilot a brand new idea called Better Visits!

The day brought together a range of people with an interest in transforming the lives of older people: researchers, clinicians, older people and their carers, and companies and organisations who provide services to this group. Delegates worked together in interdisciplinary teams to develop ideas for new research to improve the health and wellbeing of older people. These ideas were judged by an expert panel, and at the end of the day the successful proposals were awarded seed-corn funding to begin this research.

Better Visits aims to improve the experience that relatives have when going to a care setting to see their loved ones with dementia. The plan is to pilot creating and using a resource in one care setting based on what existing visitors tell us what challenges they face when visiting and what could potentially enhance this for them.

We are delighted to be able to undertake this action research and for all the support we received in turning the original idea into a proposal that won funding. We are also very grateful to Prime Life for sponsoring the prize and we look forward to working in one of their local care homes to trial it all out.

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Art on the Ward

L4A is providing 15 art sessions each in 2 community hospitals in Leicestershire (St Luke’s Market Harborough and Coalville Community Hospital) for the stroke rehab wards. We are working with up to ten inpatients and any visitors who are with them on each session.

We have planned to deliver the same series of art sessions in the two settings. We anticipated that there would be differing challenges at each hospital which would be informative when looking at taking the work forward. During the sessions there is time for discussion with relatives/visitors and this will help us to develop a ‘What to do when you Visit’ resource which would be useful for them when they are visiting. This may also be something we could use in Care Home settings too.  The aims of this pilot are to:

  • Provide meaningful and stimulating creative activity
  • Work alongside the multidisciplinary team to encourage rehabilitation following stroke
  • Relieve boredom
  • Encourage confidence
  • Boost mood and wellbeing
  • Provide topics for conversation
  • Distract from illness and problems associated with long term hospital admission
  • Create a lasting piece which can be displayed (or taken home.)
  • Inform a basic resource which can encourage visitors and family when they are thinking about what to do when visiting their loved one in hospital.

The project was planned together with the matrons, ward managers, activity coordinators, occupational therapist and physiotherapy leads in both hospital wards.

Clare Miles has led the project and is working with another artist, Rowena Williams, to facilitate the sessions. Together, a 15 week plan of art sessions has been developed. Each session is planned in advance, materials and examples are prepared and session guides written so that all participants are able to take part in the session with the help of the volunteers and facilitator. These guides will then form a lasting resource for the activity coordinators on the wards and for staff and volunteer learning mentors to access at L4A.

At the half way point we have worked with 74 patients and visitors across the project. We have 3 regular volunteers now at each site. 1 of our volunteers has herself had a stroke.  Coalville Community Hospital also has the benefit of 3 ‘Pink Ladies’ who are full time activity coordinators on the stroke ward. This has led to a marked difference between the two hospitals for delivery and general interest and engagement in the project.

We have noted that patients and visitors at Coalville are ready and anticipating the sessions in advance – this is in contrast to the ward at St Luke’s where the it seems harder to motivate patients and visitors to join in particularly when the ward staff are very busy or there are only a few therapy staff on hand.

During the project at both hospitals there have been some really lovely examples of art work and achievement, as well as many comments about the project and its benefits from both staff, visitors and patients. Art sessions which lead to a product which can be kept or shared, such as a greetings card, is really appreciated and is a wonderful outlet for expression particularly for the dysphasic patients and those who are not able to speak at all, but can still write – or who make art with a family member who then writes to them. There have been many expressions of surprise and examples of people exceeding their own expectations – or just getting ‘lost’ in the activity and finding themselves distracted from their illness.

Visitors have also been surprised by being invited to participate, this has given them a new perspective on visiting time! We are really excited that we have already had enquiries about replicating the project on other wards and are looking forward to facilitating the second half of the project in the coming weeks.

We have also had the opportunity to display art work from the project in the exhibition space at St Luke’s Hospital on Ward 1 and also as part of our celebrations art exhibition in the Guildhall in Leicester at the end of April 2017.

The ‘Art on the Ward’ Project has been made possible by a charities grant through the Arts in Mental Health NHS service for Leicester Partnership Trust.

 

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First Ever L4A Art Exhibition Off to Great Start

Our first ever art exhibition is proving to be a great success with people from the general public and our supporters dropping in throughout the day.

If you have not made it down to join us yet, don’t worry, there are still two more days to come and catch the artwork, produced by older people receiving care across Leicestershire. The exhibition continues at the Guildhall in Leicester from 11am until 4pm on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 26th April. We look forward to welcoming you to our free and friendly exhibition in this beautiful, unique venue. Examples of some of the artwork submitted by our learners (mostly in their 80s or 90s and some with dementia) is below.

Thank you to all the volunteers involved so far.

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We’ve been busy…!

We’ve all been super busy recently and are delighted to have had our former colleague and current freelancer back in the fold to curate an exhibition for us, as well as some other work too.

We’ve hired a van, rented a beautiful historic building and ordered lots of different and beautiful printed cards. We’ve been created labels and stickers and finding a cash box. We’ve been organising staff and volunteers to We’ve been traveling around the city and county collecting art works that older people have chosen to submit to our exhibition at the Guildhall to share with the wider public.

All we need now is for you to come along and see the artwork for yourselves, and to spread the word to others you know who may be interested. All of the art that will be on show at the exhibition has been proudly produced by older people receiving some sort of care and support to go about their daily lives – some live in care homes or nursing homes, others live in supported sheltered housing schemes and others live at home. Some of our artists are in their 90s, most are displaying their art for the first time and some have only ever painted, sketched and created art with our charity, Learning for the Fourth Age.

The art exhibition will be held on Tuesday 25th, Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th of April at the Guildhall in Leicester. The exhibition will be open from 11am until 4pm each day and is completely free to view, as well as open to the public. Come along and join us in celebrating the achievements of some of Leicestershire’s oldest learners. 

Examples of some of the artwork that will be on display are below: