Intergenerational work
Creating an Intergenerational Community
at Christopher Grange Care Home, L14
The dream for this National Lottery funded project was to bring families from the local area into Christopher Grange Care Home on a weekly basis (during term time) and to use music & movement as the basis for building relationships and a sense of connection.
We were so successful that once the project finished in July 2024, the families didn't want to stop coming! Between them and the activities co-ordinators they have decided to continue meeting up every other Tuesday. They will sing some songs, play games, and it seems that the residents are more than willing to pass down their knitting skills!
It would be lovely to have new people dropping in to have a cuppa and a chat with the residents and meet other local families.
Starting Tuesday 23rd July 2024
And then: 6/20th August | 3/17th September | 1/15th October | 5/19th November | 3/17th December
2pm - 3.30pm
Christopher Grange Care Home
Youens Way
Liverpool, L14 2EW
Previous Projects
Sports England - Life Rooms Collaboration
In June 2023 we received funding from Sports England to work in collaboration with the Life Rooms in Bootle to deliver a 6 week Intergenerational Music & Movement Pilot Programme.
For the first time we brought volunteers in to support us. We found Heather Stevenson, a local cancer nurse specialist and Grayson Parker who we met when we were singing at the open day for The Brain Charity. Having a team of 4 was extrememly beneficial and made the experience so much more cohesive.
We included minibus transport to and from each session (thanks to South Central Community Transport) which proved a great asset, and meant that some people, who would usually be housebound, were able to join the group. We also connected with Waterloo Day Care; a centre for people with dementia - the staff enjoyed it as much as their service users, and it was fabulous to see everyone just being human together!
As a result of this project, Holistic Harmonies were nominated by Merseycare for the Liverpool City Region Culture & Creativity Awards in 2024 - and we became finalists!
Awards For All - Music & Movement Pilot Project
In July 2021, Holistic Harmonies received a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund for us to deliver our 6 week Music & Movement Programme in 3 care homes and 1 community setting.
Beginning in January 2022, once Covid 19 lockdown rules had eased, we headed in to meet our groups. We made a decision to focus only on the older generation at this point as the health and wellbeing of this group has been severely affected, and we wanted to ease ourselves in gently.
This grant meant that we could start to build relationships with care homes and experiment with community settings. This experience then led us to working with the Life Rooms in Bootle and starting to bring families into Christopher Grange Care Home in Huyton.
The videos and photos in the gallery demonstrate our sessions at Christopher Grange Care Home in Huyton, Liverpool, and Safe Regeneration (a community venue) in Bootle, Liverpool.
A little bit of background...
In 2019 Holistic Harmonies worked with Clare McCarroll, an older person’s specialist physiotherapist, to run a programme of intergenerational music and movement sessions in a nursing home in Liverpool. The programme engaged residents, alongside local parents and their pre-school children in six free one hour-long sessions incorporating familiar songs and accessible dance movements. The intention of the programme was to bring benefits to the residents who are often isolated, to encourage movement, positive feelings, and to provide an opportunity to allow for social connections to occur between generations.
In order to understand the impact of the programme on participants, Holistic Harmonies worked with Shortwork to gather qualitative findings of the benefits of involvement from the prospective residents, parents, children, session leaders and nursing home staff, as well as the challenges encountered along the way.
The evaluation supports previous studies highlighting the benefits of involvement in intergenerational sessions for young children and older adults. These include fun and enjoyment, increased activity and movement, life enhancing social interactions, and a sense of purpose and of making a positive contribution to others.
Our ambition...
It is Holistic Harmonies' ambition to become a leading service provider in Liverpool for Intergenerational Groups, and for Arts For Health Programmes. Our track record is steadily building thanks to the grant funding we have received, and we envision being able to embed ourselves into local communities in Liverpool where we will nurture Intergenerational Relationships using Music & Movement as a conduit.
Our relationships with Social Prescribing Link Workers, Health & Social Care Professionals and NHS Mental Health Teams are building, yet we need to have consistently run services in order to establish a free flowing route of referrals of families and older people.
We would love to work in partnership with care home providers to establish long term, and consistent sessions to care homes, where arts activities are a natural aspect of the care package framework. For that to occur, we need to establish long term financial investment from care home providers / CCG's / NHS / private investment.
If this is something that your organisation can offer, then we would love to hear from you. Please call Rachel Hilton here to discuss how we may be able to work together.
*Photography by Robin Clewley Photography
*Videography by Laura Hall
