Etching to go! Chester care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Residents at a care home in Chester picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2021.

Residents and team members at Care UK’s Deewater Grange, on Chester Road, have partnered with pioneering charity, The Big Draw, for a third successful year to promote the therapeutic benefits of drawing for expression and promoting positive wellbeing. 

 

As part of their event, residents teamed up with pupils at Saighton C of E Primary School and Huntington Primary School to create a large paper tree currently displayed inside the home, featuring colourful leaves filled with positive or inspirational messages. The activity gave everyone an opportunity to brush off their artistic skills by using a variety of drawing, collage and painting techniques.

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘Make the Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their living environments, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, how the environment has changed, and look to the future at what action can be taken to help safeguard the natural world in light of the climate crisis. 

Sally Cooper, Home Manager at Deewater Grange, said: “Art and intergenerational activities are a huge part of life here at Deewater Grange, and even though we we’re unable to meet in person, it was fantastic to work with Saighton C of E Primary School and Huntington Primary School for our special art project."

“Intergenerational relationships have proven to be incredibly enriching, as they provide an opportunity for younger and older generations to learn from each other. These relationships can be particularly beneficial for older people, as they can offer a sense of purpose and prompt conversations as residents reflect on their younger years."

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival in the past two years, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2021 as 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, Care UK homes have been getting creative and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘Make the Change’. 

Deewater Grange is a state-of-the-art care home which provides full-time residential, dementia and nursing care. The home has been designed to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence, and incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities, including its own café, bar, cinema as well as a hair and beauty salon. The layout of the building is configured into a series of individual suites, each having a dedicated lounge/dining room to help facilitate the creation of close-knit communities.

For more information about Deewater Grange, please contact the Customer Relations Manager Donna Brown at donna.brown@careuk.com, or call 01244 455176.

For more general information, visit careuk.com/deewater-grange.

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/the-big-draw.

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