Ready, set, draw – East Grinstead care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Home news

Nov 05, 2020

Residents at a care home in East Grinstead picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2020.

Care UK’s Mill View, on Sunnyside Close, celebrated all things nature by creating works of art around this year’s theme, ‘a Climate of Change’.  

The residents created artwork based on endangered animals, with each suite in the home working on murals of animals from different environments around the globe. The finished designs are now on display in the care home’s windows for the community to enjoy.

The ground floor chose to draw an arctic setting, creating polar bears and penguins out of paper, while the top floor decided to draw creatures from the ocean, and included whales and sharks on their mural. Residents enjoyed researching endangered animals for the project, and putting the artwork on display.

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘A Climate of Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their environment, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, as well as trips in youngers years to the great outdoors, and how our focus looking after our planet has changed in recent years. 

Debbie Wheeler, Home Manager at Mill View, said: “It was wonderful to take part in The Big Draw for the second year running – everyone had a great time putting their drawing skills to the test.

“Creative activities play a big part of life here at Mill View, and we actively encourage residents to continue lifelong arty hobbies and to try new and expressive pastimes. Drawing has a variety of benefits for older people, especially those living with dementia, as it provides an alternative way to communicate and express emotions, and an opportunity to relive happy memories.

“It was great to see everyone’s final pieces. We certainly have some budding artists and we look forward to displaying our works of art around the home.”

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival last year, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2020, becoming the main health and social care partner and leading the way in changing perceptions of life in a care home by promoting activity-based care and encouraging other care homes to follow suit. Across the country, more than 70 Care UK homes have been getting arty and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘A Climate of Change’.

Mill View has been designed to deliver the very best standards of care and to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives. The home provides full-time residential, nursing and specialist dementia care, as well as short-term respite. The home features state of the art facilities including a cinema, café and activity space.

To find out more about Mill View, call Customer Relations Manager, Amy Batchelor, on 01342 887 940, or email amy.batchelor@careuk.com

To find out more about Care UK’s partnership with the Big Draw, and for more top tips on how you and your loved ones can get involved at home, visit careuk.com/care-homes/bigdraw

To find out more about the Big Draw festival, please go to thebigdraw.org