Looking the art! Horsham residents team up with primary school for worldwide art festival

Residents at a care home in Horsham have been ‘looking the art’ throughout October as they picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2021.

Care UK’s Skylark House, on St Mark’s Lane, has 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. 

Not letting the pandemic stop them from making new friends, residents and team members thought of a creative solution and asked local pupils from Holbrook Primary School for help with their artwork. 

Team members and residents decided to create a giant collage of the local community, with residents first exploring a range of art techniques and different materials to draw their own version of Skylark House. After the school’s artwork was specially delivered to the home and quarantined, the residents used the pupil’s drawings of nature and wildlife to decorate their creation and show the rural setting which surrounds the care home. 

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 planet in light of the climate crisis. 

Dorota Woloszyn, Home Manager at Skylark House, said: “Art and intergenerational activities are a huge part of life here at Skylark House, and even though we may have been unable to meet in person, it was fantastic to collaborate with Holbrook Primary School for our giant collage.

“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. 

“We’d like to say a big thank you to Holbrook Primary School for taking part, and we can’t wait to join forces again soon for some arty fun!”

Skylark House 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.   

For more information on Skylark House, please call Customer Relations Manager, Beverly Jordan, on 01403 887 578 or email beverly.jordan@careuk.com.

For more general information, please visit: careuk.com/skylark-house.

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.