Ready, set, draw – Banbury care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Home news

Nov 13, 2020

Residents at a care home in Banbury picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2020.

Care UK’s Highmarket House, on North Bar Place, celebrated all things nature by creating works of art around this year’s theme, ‘a Climate of Change’.  

As part of their event, residents and team members joined forces with children at Cropredy Pre-school and Rainbows Day Nursery to create an underwater-themed collage. The final piece, now displayed in the home, showcases several marine species, including sharks, fish, starfish and octopuses.

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘A Climate of Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their environment, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, as well as trips to the great outdoors in their younger years, and how our focus looking after our planet has changed in recent years. 

Jo Pohl, Home Manager at Highmarket House, said: “We had a great time taking part in The Big Draw again this year, and it was a wonderful opportunity to put our creativity to the test.

“Art and intergenerational activities are a huge part of life here at Highmarket House, and even though we may have been unable to meet in person, it was fantastic to team up with Cropredy Pre-school and Rainbows Day Nursery to create our artwork. As well as being a great way to develop our artistic skills, intergenerational activities are a wonderful way to improve wellbeing and provide older people with a sense of purpose.

“We’d like to thank Cropredy Pre-school and Rainbows Day Nursery for taking part, and we can’t wait to join forces again soon for some arty fun!”

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival last year, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2020, becoming the main health and social care partner and leading the way in changing perceptions of life in a care home by promoting activity-based care and encouraging other care homes to follow suit. Across the country, more than 70 homes have been getting arty and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘A Climate of Change’.

Highmarket House is a state-of-the-art care home which provides full-time residential, dementia, nursing and short-term respite care. The home, which features 73 en-suite bedrooms, has been designed to enable its residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence. The care home incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities and includes its own cinema, hairdressing salon and café.

For more information email Customer Relations Manager, Sophie Holmes, at Sophie.Holmes@careuk.com or call 01295 297 652.

To find out more about Care UK’s partnership with the Big Draw, and for more top tips on how you and your loved ones can get involved at home, visit careuk.com/care-homes/bigdraw

To find out more about the Big Draw festival, please go to thebigdraw.org