Arts, Health and Seniors Project

The Arts, Health and Seniors Project is exploring how involvement in the arts can improve the health and wellbeing of seniors. This initiative is also supporting the development of new knowledge and expertise in the fields of seniors’ wellness, chronic disease management, and community-engaged arts.

This three-year pilot project is documenting the impacts of involvement on the physical health, mental health and social connections of participant seniors, with the hope of facilitating their ability to “age in place”, and is building new expertise amongst senior workers and artists in Vancouver and the three municipalities of the North Shore.

Context
The Arts, Health and Seniors Project will address many current issues for seniors and artists:

• Our population is aging and marginalization is increasing amongst the elderly


• Health practitioners across North America are recognizing the need for new models of care.


• Current approaches to recreation are being expanded and enriched to support seniors’ wellness.


• Community-engaged artists and those working with seniors seek support for their work in community partnership towards wellness through the arts.


• Research is needed to demonstrate the link between participation in the arts and health in the Canadian context.

Goals

• To maintain and/or improve the health and wellbeing of seniors in Vancouver and the North Shore through their participation in community-engaged arts practices;


• To create a supportive environment for community engaged arts practices and increase their use within health environments and centres for community programming;


• To demonstrate the positive impact of participation in arts-based activities on the health and well-being of seniors in Vancouver and the North Shore.

Activities
Over three years, the project will:

• Offer regular participatory arts workshops to four groups of seniors from a wide range of demographic clusters;


• Engage participants in “Arts Experiences”, opportunities for seniors to attend presentations of work by professional artists in their discipline and, where possible, of their peer group;


• Support a strong research component which will demonstrate real health outcomes for seniors and contribute to increasing the programming capacity of health and recreation services.

The groups are located in the City of Vancouver and the North Shore. Artists from a variety of disciplines (e.g. puppetry, visual arts, theatre, new media, literary arts) are developing works with the seniors and facilitating the creative process.

Many ways to participate - stories from an urban ravine (Renfrew Community Centre)

The group at Renfrew is a very special one. It is the fruit of many efforts that are just starting to come together into a series of weekly workshops where seniors who had never access some of the services around their home are suddenly taking part of them as these take place in the lobby of their building.

The corner of Renfrew and 22nd Ave is in a way a hub of seniors services. Renfrew Park Community Centre and Renfrew Collingwood Seniors Society offer a wide array of services for people living in this beautiful area of the city. Three Links Care is a long term care facility next door and Three Links Manor is a subsidized housing for low income seniors.

The seniors at the Manor have traditionally have very little use of the services offered by the other organizations. It has almost been two years since their resident care taker is no longer at the building, and there have been growing tensions among the residents. Many of the people in the building do not know each other, and in some cases there are significant levels of distrust between them. Little acts of resentment from some of the residents could be seen as people where ripping off the notices and other ads in the building's bulletin board. This of course included all our posters for the program that tended to last a couple of days before they were gone from the wall.

Outreaching to the seniors at the Manor was is one of the primary goals of the Renfrew team. We are offering weekly workshops and making sure there is always cookies and coffee. Cheryl, the seniors worker from Renfrew Park comes to all the sessions, as well as Kara from Three Links Care. This is an exemplary strategy for reaching out to the more isolated seniors: the program is developed with them in mind, but instead of offering it at the community centre or the day care, it is taken right to the lobby of their building.

And we are also patient. Patient for more and more people to hear about these guys doing art in the lobby every Friday. Patient for the relationships to change between the residents and those of us who are perceived as the administrators. Patient for letting the participants slowly feel more confident about the group, the art work and the creative process.

It has been a month and a half of workshops and things have already started to change. During our Steering Committee meeting last night Kara share a very powerful story on how the residents have change the way they relate to her. Everyone at the meeting was thrilled to heart how people who were quite hostile to her in the past were now talking to here in very different terms. This is a paraphrase of her comment:
"The residents now talk to me in a good way when I go there. It is interesting to see this happening as a result of an art project."

This is the power of the arts. It creates a safe space where issues can be raised in many different ways, many of them less confrontational. It is also an example of the power of a team coming together with a clear goal. The united efforts of Shelley, Kara, Cheryl, Nancy, Carmen and Kim are really having an impact even at this early stage.

If you go to one of the Renfrew workshops, you will be welcome by a formidable host that although does not necessarily sits to do the art, he makes sure everything is in place for the workshop. He lets people in, helps with the cleaning (including washing paint brushes in the sink of his apartment), brings a garbage bag and keeps picking up anything left on the floor. This participant seems to be moving from going everyday to talk to the Director of Three Links Care about problems in the building, to bring reading material for a seniors reading group at the facility. If you go to Renfrew, he would very likely show you one of his many newspaper articles that he collects about the story of three links and other organizations in Vancouver.

There are many ways to participate in a community art project, but the impacts of doing so seem to reach them all.

The Zimmers "My Generation" Music Video by Seniors

geriatric1927 - A 79 year old who is YouTube's #9 most subscribed

Director's biography on YouTube:

Name: peter
Age: 79
I am a widower living alone in the county in the middle of England Uk. My life has been very varied but my love of motorcycles has remained with me all of my life (no, I don't have piercings or tattoos).I am a bit of a recluse I suppose as partying and such do not appeal. I have a degree in fine art which I got at the age of 60+ so have interests there.Blues music is essential to my well being and have been addicted since a child. I have a background in mechanical engineering. I guess that's enough. Ask me if you want to know more.
Music: Blues
Books: Any dealing with human relationships.
Website: askgeriatric.com




These are the statistics for geriatric1927
#9 - Most Subscribed (All Time)
#8 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors
#60 - Most Viewed (All Time) - Directors

Style: VLogging
Joined: August 04 2006
Last Login: 7 hours ago
Videos Watched: 2,557
Subscribers: 41412
Channel Views: 1,751,676

Here is a link to the geriatric1927 director's section in YouTube, where you can see more about him and other videos. His most recent video is "Computing for the Terrified", a talk he gave to a seniors' computing class.

Digital Story Tellers at Silver Harbour

Digital Story Tellers

Tuesday mornings at Silver Harbour Senior Center in North Vancouver, a group of us come together to learn, to share, and to reminisce. We are the digital storytellers and we come from many walks of life and from a variety of age groups. Our greatest commonality is that we have stories to tell. The uniqueness of the program is that it allows us to tell our stories in pictures and sound.

Our first task is to choose a story. Many opt to tell a story of something special about the earlier times of their life:

• boyhood adventures on Shushwap Lake
• budding manhood enterprises aboard ship in the Navy
• visions inspired by settlement in Canada, a country so loved from the moment of arrival
• survival of cold harsh Saskatchewan winters in the early 1900’s
• rediscovery of the wonder of light, and the wonder of being alive

Others choose to tell about influences and passions they enjoy as senior people.

• the dancing career that has acquired awards and recognition for one spirited, energetic senior
• the influence of a special friend who inspired a love for the beauty of a glorious garden
• the precious piano, which came into one participant’s life when she was two and continues to be a major influence in her life today

Though the stories are inspiring and beautiful, organizing them into concisely compelling essays is challenging. This is where our talented and patient facilitator, Patti steps in. She takes the stories and using her expertise and experience as a writer, helps each person develop their writings into tales that audiences love to hear.



Telling these stories gives us the opportunity to go through those long forgotten albums of pictures hidden away in cedar chests, packed away in basements, stored away in forgotten attics. Finding just the right pictures to fit into the story is truly a challenge, but pulling oneself away from all the memories they stimulate is even more difficult. Staying on task is the key to completing this part of the program.


Now comes the most demanding task of all. Putting all these stories and pictures into digital form.


Corin, with her ingenious proficiency and talent is our tech support facilitator. She and Patti have managed to beg, borrow, and buy all our technical needs: cameras, microphones, and a whole lab full of macintosh computers fully loaded with all the required software.

Many are not comfortable or even familiar with this high tech aspect of life. When inputting all collected information for their story, confusion often reigns.





Though Corin has all the answers to the questions we ask, it is impossible to keep pace with the needs of the group. Youthful volunteers come in to assist, to help record the memories, and to clarify the ideas that need to be written.

We are persisting. Our intention is to have the stories completed and ready for publication by the middle of May. We are encouraged with what we have accomplished so far. But above all, we want to say,“Bless our facilitators and our young enthusiastic volunteers for their patience, their expertise, and their willingness to persevere to help us create such unique productions”.

"Grinding their own social lens" - the VIA project

I found an article today linked to a website which documents activities parallel to those of the Peer Reporters. The VIA (Video Intervention/Prevention Assessment) Project gave video cameras to adolescents being treated for chronic illnesses, so that they could see and hear about the programme from the participants themselves. Click the blue link that follows to see the site:
VIA Project

The article described the impact of the videos made by VIA participants:
"...the VIA Project, through using video cameras, enabled patients to ‘grind their own social lens’ and produce their own accounts of how their conditions impacted on their lives. The thing that struck me in watching the testimonies (and we can see them online now) is the “you need to see this, I need you to know this” quality that they possessed. This is about playing with the nature of observation itself and who is the observer and who is the observed."

Here is a link to the whole article, which was the introduction to the final workshop of the "Live Sociology" series at the University of Cardiff, UK, December 9, 2006:
Sociological Life

Inspection berfore shore leave in Hong Kong 1955. This pic will be used in my video Flip Flops a Navy Story. I will publish the video as soon as I am finished edititing.r.a.e.