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

Residents at a care home in Hythe 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 Carpathia Grange, on Southampton 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 and team members hosted a drawing workshop where residents were encouraged to draw, paint or sketch their memories of nature. The residents were also given soft toy hedgehogs to use as inspiration for their drawings, and easels were set up for residents to paint, while others used their own memories to create their works of art. 

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. 

Pooja Dhoot, Home Manager at Carpathia Grange, said: “It was wonderful to take part in The Big Draw for the first time – the residents were quick off the draw to get involved and put their drawing skills to the test. 

“Creative activities play a big part of life here at Carpathia Grange and we actively encourage residents to continue lifelong arty hobbies and try new expressive pastimes through imaginative and creative activities planned by our lifestyle team. Drawing has a variety of benefits for older people, especially those living with dementia, as it provides an alternative way to communicate and express emotions, and an opportunity to relive happy memories.

“We certainly have some budding artists here at Carpathia Grange and we can’t wait to display our works of art around the home.”

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’. 

Carpathia Grange is a three-storey care home, which provides residential, dementia and nursing care, features 62 ensuite bedrooms, and 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, hair salon and café.

For more information, please email Customer Relations Manager, Nikki Toomer, at nicola.toomer@careuk.com, or call 0238 098 8733. 

For general information please visit: careuk.com/carpathia-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.