Threads of Memory, The Spaces Between Us
Funded by the Arts Charity within Cardiff and Vale University Health Board in partnership with Mental Health Matters Wales.
Delighted to be featured on the Arts for Health and Wellbeing website: https://tinyurl.com/2a33tbs8
‘Threads of Memory, The Spaces Between Us’ was a 6-week pilot digital craft project supported by the Cardiff & Vale Health Charity. I worked in partnership with the Wellbeing Activities Co-ordinator and a small team of volunteer support staff at Mental Health Matters St. Davids, Cardiff, trialling innovative online delivery between patients and staff on a live clinical ward for patients with dementia.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, I supported staff online in the delivery of craft-based activities that took place at patients’ bedsides. Three workshops (approximately 1.5 hours) focused on sharing the digital skills with staff to enable them to record patients’ voices (with their permission), reading out the poem ‘The Owl and The Pussycat.’ Their voices were linked to touch capacitance sensors to make an interactive book for display on the ward.
The project enabled staff to connect with patients and each other in new ways, using an innovative, engaging delivery method. Patients engaged in imaginative conversations inspired by their paintings.
As a result of the collaboration, I am looking forward to delivering the development of this project via blended delivery at St. David’s and The Heath Hospital once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
