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| Drama workshop at the RYCT Reminiscence in Dementia Care Symposium |
After spending a month in Malaga working at the
Official School of Languages in Fuengirola, I am back in London. Going back to
my old life in Spain wasn’t as hard as I expected. It was weird to meet my
students on the last week of classes, but the teacher who had been standing in
for me, Tamara, was such an amazing professional that she made the transition
really smooth. After a couple of days I felt as if I had never left my post. It
was also really nice to discover that many of my old students had been
following this blog and had been connected to me somehow throughout the year.
Living at my mum’s was great: she and her partner,
Julian, spoilt me rotten and I must say that I have never eaten so much “jamón
serrano” in my life. They live far from my school and I have spent a long time
commuting to work, but I also had a delicious sandwich in my bag. Travelling by
train wasn’t that bad after all, I spent the time doing useful things such as
reading Anita Berlin’s wonderful account of how her grandfather arrived in
Spain or writing my contribution for the forthcoming symposium Remembering
Yesterday Caring Today. Reminiscence in Dementia Care”.
However, life has been far from relaxing. I left in
the morning and came back almost at midnight. To make matters worse, my
permission to come back to London to help at the symposium wasn’t properly
applied for and it wasn’t clear whether I would get it until the very last
minute. Finally, I was given the green light to come to London less than 24
hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was sighing with relief when
I was told that my flight had been cancelled due to the French air controllers’
strike. It was 19:00 and I had to be in London the next day. The airline I was
booked in could not offer me a place in the next 48 hours and I would miss the symposium.
My colleague Paul helped me find another flight with another company.
Fortunately, this one wasn’t cancelled. I travelled all night and I arrived
just in time for the conference.
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| Workshop on the use of visual arts-based activities |
Again, going back to my life in London was really
easy (I must have become a very flexible person). After a few hours, I felt I
had never left. Fortunately, Sue Heiser and a group of wonderful people (I
can’t mention all of them now, but I am extremely thankful to them) had helped
Pam in the last legs of the conference preparations.
Most of the members of the European Reminiscence
Network have worked together in the framework of a Grundtvig Learning
Partnership (Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today) during the last two years.
This symposium was the culmination of this project. Delegates from all over
Europe (The Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Northern
Ireland Poland, Slovakia, Spain) joined specialists from all over the UK to
share experiences and ideas.
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| Josep Vilar and Duna Ulsamer give their presentation on the impact of RYCT on staffs and residents in the care home context |
What was the symposium about? Well, Sally Knocker,
summarised it very well in her introductory talk. First, she asked the audience
to choose three pieces of information they would use to define themselves. Some
people chose things related to their work, hobbies, family, personality...
Then, Sally explained that when you are diagnosed with dementia, this is the
only thing people see in you; all of a sudden, the rest of your defining
features disappear.
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| The Slovak team led a series of activities on the use of visual arts |
The day was packed with workshops focused on the
experience and needs of participants with dementia, the impact of “Remembering
Yesterday Caring Today” in the care home context, the needs of family carers,
the use of drama, music and the visual arts in the RYCT sessions, and how to
work towards an artistic product, training and evaluation. All these workshops
had a common goal: to focus on the person, not the patient. Artists met social
workers, care home managers, specialists in dementia, writers, family carers
and persons with dementia who have made different contributions to the RYCT
project according to their own skills.
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| Drama activity led by Pam Schweitzer |
The day went by like a dream and I would like to
share with you a few moments, illustrated by Lorenzo’s wonderful photos: the
participants of the drama workshop lying on the floor reproducing the frozen
image of a holiday, the people who joined the visual arts workshop writing and
drawing on the paper-covered walls, Anita Berlin looking at the series of
portraits that her son Alex had made of her father Ludwig, Josep and Duna
talking about the impact of the project in the care home context... Of course I
missed a lot. I wish I could have been everywhere, but you can get a taste of
the exciting atmosphere of the day.
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| Anita Berlin looking at her father's portrait |
We had lunch in the beautiful hall of the town hall
in Woolwich (Pam managed to convince them not to move us to the basement, even
if we were almost 100 people), and we had the “official” group photo on the
impressive staircase, one of the landmarks of the building.
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| Dinner at the Town Hall in Woolwich |
One of the pluses of this symposium was the
outstanding theatre performances we enjoyed during the day. The first one was
“Going Back”, the new reminiscence show by Eastern Angles, which tells the life
story of Sid, a 94-year-old veteran and his wife Hettie throughout the 20th
century. This was a brilliantly performed show in which I would highlight the
amazing choreography and use of sound effects.
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| Pam Schweitzer and Jon Tavener (director) converse before the Eastern Angles show |
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| "Going Back" by Eastern Angles |
The second performance was Wioleta Pietrasik’s homage
to her grandma, who lived with Alzheimer’s during the last years of her life. This
intimate piece was developed by the actress herself with the help of Pam
Schweitzer. I loved the mixture of Polish and English and the humorous use of
body language.
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| Wioleta Pietrasik shows how her mother used to stir the mashed potatoes |
There was also an exclusive one-to-one performance by
Clare McManus, “Tread Softly”, which took place in the kitchen, but only ten
people could attend it and I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.
I had to speak at the end of the day, during the
launching of the Reminiscence Theatre Archive, so I expected that by the time
my turn arrived, everybody would have fled or would be half asleep out of
exhaustion. To make matters worse, there was a break for “wine” right before my
speech. Amazingly, everybody enjoyed my presentation (maybe it was the wine). I
guess my life had been such a rollercoaster for the last seven days that I was
too tired to get nervous. Actually, I really enjoyed sharing my enthusiasm
about the hidden treasures of the archive.
To finish this entry, I would like to thank all the
European members of the network for their support and appreciation. I met most
of them in Poznan in October, when I had just arrived here, and now it’s great
to see them at the end of this project. They are great professionals and
wonderful persons as well. This is the end of one of their learning
partnerships and the beginning of a new one, this time led by the very capable Catalan
team. Pam knows that the future of the network is in good hands.
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| Mark, Duna and Josep enjoy their meal at Pam's |
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| Petr Veleta shows his dancing skills to the group |
P.S. The next day Pam invited all the European
partners to have dinner at her house and relax after two days of hard work. The
food was delicious and the atmosphere was lively and warm. Each country was
invited to sing a song and the Spanish team chose “Eva Mª se fue buscando el
sol en la playa”.
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| Probably not the best song of the night, but we enjoyed it |
