L4A

We work with older people receiving care across Leicester and Leicestershire

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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!

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Tom cycles for 12 hours straight to raise £500 for L4A!

At 3am on a cold, rainy and dark Saturday morning in August, Tom March climbed onto a bike at Anytime Fitness Corby, started cycling and did not get off again until 12 hours later. At 3pm, he clambered off the bike having raised £500 for Learning for the Fourth Age and we could not be more grateful. 

Tom is no stranger to fitness challenges and works as a personal trainer. Between all the cyclists on Saturday 5th August, the combined distance achieved together was 270 miles and most of these were achieved by Tom himself who did not stop pedalling at an impressive cadence throughout his challenge.

With such a huge challenge to undertake, he had spare bikes next to him for other people to join in support. Many people did, including some of his family members and friends, and even our very own CEO (in spite of being almost 7 months pregnant).

It is not too late to sponsor Tom for this huge effort or to donate to our ongoing work here.

And if you need some help with a similar challenge or would like to work with Tom as your personal trainer, please see here for more details or call him on 07739 558171.

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Cam’s Fundraising Story!

I had really wanted to do the North Norfolk Coast walk for a year or so, and thought it would be nice if I used it to fundraise for charity.

I had visited some care homes with L4A previously as a volunteer, helping with activities and storytelling. During these visits I had seen the difference it makes to older people’s lives, and how it makes them feel involved. It had also been a worthwhile experience for me, and so I decided to use L4A as my chosen charity.

I made a justgiving account, and the setting up was as simple as selecting the charity on the justgiving webpage, then updating it every so often. This also meant donations went straight to the charity, making the process hassle free.

The walk itself was a real struggle, and a test of endurance, but it felt like a great achievement when it was finished. Hopefully the blisters wear off soon!

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50+ Wellbeing Day proves to be a big hit in Evington!


We were very proud to learn of the success of a recent 50+ Wellbeing Day event that was organised and led by Anita Barrand as part of our Social Prescribing project in Evington, with lots of help and input from the Helen Pettman at Friends of Evington too.

The 50+ Wellbeing Event was held on Saturday 24th June at Evington Park House and tried to get awareness of our charity, our Social Prescribing project and LAT out there at hyper local grassroots level.

Anita Barrand says “We had great turn out! Huge heartfelt thanks to all of the wonderful LAT staff and volunteers who ran stalls and activities: Outstanding moments include Suky Garcha’s ‘laughter yoga’, WEA aromatherapy ladies (WOW!), the Downing Drive patients who did a sterling job of recruiting volunteers, exhibiting their artwork and generally mucking in and not forgetting the truly lovely Gurpreet from AoHL. Thank you for your support and look forward to future collaborations!”

Following the success of this initial event, we hope to be able to try and organise future ones to drum up more awareness in the future. We hope that some of the contacts we made will become volunteers and learners through our Social Prescribing: More Than Medication project. 

 

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Challenges Accepted!

We are proud to have all sorts of supporters in L4A and some of them even take on crazy challenges to raise much needed funds for us. If you are inspired by any of the stories below and would like to take on any sort of challenge at all in order to raise money for us, we would be really grateful. Please speak to any member of our team or email us on info@l4a.org.uk to discuss in more detail. You can, of course, donate to L4A at any time through our Just Giving website here and we are especially grateful for small monthly donations.

Cam Smith spent an entire three days walking 47 miles (and many more to campsites and beyond) across shingle and over hills along the beautiful Norfolk Coastal path in order to fundraise for us. Read his story here.

In less than one month, Tom March will be cycling for 12 hours solid for us in order to fundraise to improve quality of life for older people receiving care locally. Ouch. Read more about his challenge here.

Rozanna Kinmans has successfully run a half marathon raising £180 for us. See here.

A huge thank you to all our supporters and to all of the wonderful people who sponsored them in their challenges. We are grateful to you all. All funds raised will be spent at the grassroots supporting our charitable work improving the quality of life for older people receiving care in Leicester and Leicestershire.

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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 – final project report

Learning for the Fourth Age is delighted to have worked with over 200 people during our first ever pilot taking learning into this new setting! You can download the final report of this pilot, packed with photos and quotes that highlight the impact of this project here:

Final Report Art on the Ward

With the support of the Arts in Mental Health Coordinators working for the NHS Leicestershire Partnership Trust, we set about working on two wards in two different locations with two different people leading the sessions. The impact and success of the project have been significant and we are already seeking further funding to pilot similar work targeting older people with mental health conditions, including dementia. Fingers crossed!

Our heartfelt thanks go to Clare Miles and Rowena Williams who delivered such lovely, inspiring work each week for fifteen weeks over the course of the project. The photos of people engaging in learning, the quotes from older people and staff and the photographs of the artwork produced show the value of artistic learning interventions for older people recovering in hospitals. Both Clare and Rowena have a wealth of experience in working with stroke patients, dementia and those recovering with L4A but also as a nurse and a speech and language therapist respectfully.

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Tales We Have Told and Shared

The Power of Stories: Tales for Telling and Sharing

L4A was delighted to be featured on regional news as part of The People’s Projects (more information here). Five charities pitched projects to the TV audience in order to gain votes from the public and L4A The Power of Stories won. This project ended in March 2017 but a legacy from the project continues with staff and volunteers feeling empowered to continue the work.

You will see from this video here that stories really do have the power to help older people feel healthier and happier. Listening to stories together unlocks memories and prompts people to share their own stories – making friends in the process. Working with professional storytellers, this project also involved training and supporting carers, care home staff and volunteers with storytelling skills.

Storytelling Video

Learning for the Fourth Age (L4A) delivered storytelling in 10-12 care homes and we have found it to be a very positive way of including and involving those whose situation can cause them to feel isolated and excluded from activity. The impact of the project was so significant that we recruited Hilary Comfort to evaluate the project in detail for us. We are delighted with what she found and the full report can be downloaded here for free:

Storytelling Evaluation

We are so inspired by the impact of this work that we are going to try and find further funding to roll it out to more settings, more nursing homes, more staff and even, for example, community hospital ward settings in the near future so watch this space!

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A Fond Farewell to Musical Care Homes 

We launched an exciting project as part of Leicester Ageing Together in 2015 called Musical Care Homes. It was designed to reduce the isolation, loneliness and boredom some older people feel through the use of music.

L4A worked in partnership with Soft Touch Arts for this 18 month long piece of work. We have created a short film to highlight the successes particularly for the older people involved, including those who have dementia, which you can view by following the link:

CLICK HERE FOR FILM LINK

Active participation in group music-making has been found to impact positively upon physiological and psychological health, to increase happiness amongst individual members and to contribute to enjoyment, personal development and empowerment. Contrary to what some people believe, musical development and progression are entirely possible for older people. Researchers have tested musical aptitude amongst people over the age of 65 and have concluded that capacities for musical development are maintained with age.

More information about Leicester Ageing Together can be found on their website here where there are lots of exciting activities underway for older people across Leicester to support independence and tackle loneliness.