Etching to go! Ashford care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Residents at a care home in Ashford have been ‘looking the art’ throughout October as they picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2021.

Care UK’s Montfort Manor, on Kennington Road, have partnered with pioneering charity, The Big Draw, for a third successful year to promote the therapeutic benefits of drawing for expression and promoting positive wellbeing. 

 

As part of the event, residents and team members first discussed their favourite things about nature and were encouraged to share fond memories of their time spent exploring the great outdoors in younger years. 

With many residents talking about their love of wildlife, the team at Montfort Manor set the task of drawing popular animals, including dogs, foxes and owls, using a range of pencils and paints. The artistic creations are on display around the home for everyone to enjoy. 

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘Make the Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their living environments, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, how the environment has changed, and look to the future at what action can be taken to help safeguard the planet in light of the climate crisis. 

Roda Williams, Home Manager at Montfort Manor, said: “The Big Draw Festival is a fantastic initiative to get autumn ‘off to a flying art’, which residents have enjoyed and looked forward to for a third year running.  

“Here at Montfort Manor, we believe in the power of activity-based care. Art is a wonderful way for residents to express their feelings and showcase their artistic flare through an activity where anyone can take part – and there is no right or wrong way! 

“This year’s theme created a great topic of conversation, and it was interesting to hear residents’ favourite nature-related anecdotes and views on how things have changed since they were young. It was fantastic to see the residents discussing what small actions we can all do that will lead to big changes in the fight against climate change”. 

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival last year, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2021 as 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, Care UK homes have been getting creative and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘Make the Change’. 

Montfort Manor is a purpose-built care home which has been designed to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence. The home provides full-time residential, nursing and specialist dementia care for older people in Ashford, as well as short-term respite care, and incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities, including its own cinema, hairdressing salon and café. 

For more information, please email Customer Relations Manager, Nicola Young, at nicola.young@careuk.com or call 01233 884 619. 

For more general information please visit: careuk.com/montfort-manor.

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.