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

Residents at a care home in Sevenoaks 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 Weald Heights, on Bourchier Close, 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 the event, residents and team members discussed their favourite things about nature and were encouraged to share fond memories of time spent exploring the great outdoors in their younger years. With many residents talking about their love of wildlife, the team at Weald Heights settled on ‘the most admired things in nature’ as a theme. Drawings included butterflies, squirrels, and rabbits, created using a range of pencils and paints, before being placed on display around the home for everyone to enjoy. 

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. 

Maria Covington, Home Manager at Weald Heights, said: “It was wonderful to take part in The Big Draw for the third year – 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 Weald Heights, 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 Weald Heights, 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’. 

Weald Heights is a purpose-built care home designed to deliver luxury hotel-style comfort for residents, complete with a café, hair and beauty salon, cinema and beautiful gardens. The home is divided into separate residential, nursing and dementia care suites, encouraging close-knit communities where residents can get to know each other, and where people with similar needs can be cared for together.

For more information on Weald Heights, please call Customer Relations Manager, Amelia Moore, on 01732 809 189, or email amelia.moore2@careuk.com.

For more general information, please visit: careuk.com/weald-heights.

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.