Live and Learn Evaluation Report The publication date coincided with the lead artist running a demonstration workshop at The Baring Foundation ‘Coming Of Age’ Best Practice conference in Manchester. This launch event was to start the dissemination process of the Toolkit amongst the wider sector. Between November 2013 and March 2014 the lead artist ran a series of workshops for both home carers and professional carers promoting the Toolkit. Feedback included: “Loved it. I love trying to find the talking point, so this really helped. The activities are really useful.” “Love the simplicity of the booklet, certainly going to use poetry exercise.” “Loved it. Go with the flow of person’s reality, great lesson. Really good morning.” “Lots of laughs, great to have a break from dementia based work, would love to know about more work.” “I can’t thank you enough for giving me the details of the arts workshop for dementia. Bill and I had a lovely afternoon with really nice friendly people. We laughed so much and it was a real tonic. At the end of the session we had written a poem of Liverpool, which gave me goose bumps! To be honest, most of my life now revolves around Alzheimer's. Everywhere we go and all the events and every conversation I have is about Alzheimers but today was 2 hours of complete relaxation. Thank you so much.” At the end of this process all fifty pocket guides have been disseminated. The next stage of the research, yet to be undertaken, will be to contact all those who have a Toolkit to analyse they have been utilised. We also intend to seek further funding to roll the toolkit out further
Project Coordinator/lead artist Analysis The Toolkit has been designed to be used by carers who may not have had any arts based training and the exercises contained are standard drama, creative writing, movement or music exercises. We have not created new ways of working, but exercises have been chosen because they are simple to use and have been proven to work with people with Dementia. Whenever we introduce the Toolkit to a Care Home or Day Centre, we are clear to make the point that the Toolkit is designed to introduce creative practice on a regular basis and not to replace work undertaken with professional artists when the opportunity arises. The Toolkit is Unique because we have made it freely available to download to anyone supporting someone who is living with Dementia. It has been colour coded so that it is easy to use and offers a range of activities that have been proven to work. The testing of the Toolkit was hugely successful and consequently the final product was dramatically different from the original draft. However the process was not without it’s challenges or difficulties. During the project it had been difficult to develop relationships with care homes and day centres so once we had established a strong link with Leighton Dene we decided to test the Toolkit at this one Day Centre. When the Toolkit was initially introduced to staff there was a lot of nervousness and
25