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

Residents at a care home in Crowborough 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 Heather View 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 and team members were encouraged to paint, sketch or draw their favourite flowers. The residents were given pictures as guides and got to work designing their nature inspired artwork, with Margaret Schofield decided to paint her favourite flower, a lovely purple bloom. 

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. 

Home Manager at Heather View, Natasha King, 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 can take many forms, from drawing to painting and singing. At Heather View we always like to think outside of the box to create imaginative activities that create new experiences for the residents – so decided to paint the resident’s favorite flowers. 

“We regularly encourage residents to take part in therapeutic and artistic activities which promote positive wellbeing. The whole team look forward to learning more about the wonderful experiences the residents have enjoyed throughout their lives and creating imaginative activities that build on their talents.”

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’. 

Heather View has been designed to deliver the very best standards of care and to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives. The home provides full-time residential, nursing and dementia care, as well as short-term respite and palliative care. The home has its own space for activities, as well as a cinema, sensory room and café. 

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.

To find out more about Heather View care home, call 01892 883 574 or email Customer Relations Manager, Gailynne Peters, at gailynne.peters@careuk.com.

To find out more about Heather View, visit careuk.com/heather-view.