School children decorate memory boxes to delight of care home residents

Occupants of Lymington’s Linden House dementia care home recently welcomed children from the nearby William Gilpin School, who brought with them artwork specially created for the trip.

Led by an Art Therapist, the children’s project focused on childhood memories that pupils were able to share with the home’s residents, contributing to their reminiscence therapy.

Sources of inspiration included school plays, trips and holidays, with drawings, photos, toys and ticket stubs among the items that decorated the memory boxes.

Teaching assistant Jan Bird comments: “The children came up with some really interesting items to put in their memory boxes. Many of them were things that teachers and other adults involved in school productions and visits might well have forgotten about but seen from the mind’s eye of a child they were memorable.”

Linden House’s activities organiser, Mandy Stevens, was pleased with the whole visit, saying: “This was the first time we have welcomed such young children in as a whole group. After the visit, residents were coming up to me and saying how much they enjoyed it. We wanted the experience to complement our wider focus on gentle memory stimulation. Our home has many memory-themed rooms and garden spaces and talking about times gone by is something that our residents find very therapeutic.”

Classmate Martha, who showed her own drawings, a teddy bear, a shell, pictures of her dog and a ticket from a music festival, also said: “I really liked getting everything together and decorating the box. It’s all stuff that reminds me of when I was younger.”

The visit was made possible thanks to an initiative of Sway-based charity Hampshire Art for Recreation and Therapy (hArt), whose art therapists Sam Lewis was able to help inspire the children.

She comments: “This is the first inter-generational project we have done. For the children, the aim was to help their transition to secondary school by reflecting on their time in education so far and bring closure on their final years of primary. For the Linden House residents, it was a further chance to talk about memories of youth, something that can be therapeutic on the dementia journey.”