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

Residents at a care home in Leatherhead picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2021.

Residents and team members at Care UK’s Milner House 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 their event, residents were encouraged to draw, paint and sketch their own ‘memories of nature.’ Many used the home’s gardens as inspiration, painting flowers and fallen leaves from the trees. The resident's artwork was then compiled into a large collage, designed to showcase everyone’s work, which is now displayed for everyone to see in the home's reception area. 

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 natural world in light of the climate crisis. 

Home Manager at Milner House, Michele Belch, said: “The Big Draw Festival is a fantastic initiative to get creative, and we know residents have been looking forward to the event.   

“Here at Milner House, 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 or loss of our wildlife”. 

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival in the past two years, 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’. 

Milner House care home provides full-time residential, dementia, nursing and short-term respite care. The home, which features 46 ensuite bedrooms, has been designed to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence. The care home incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities and includes its own hair salon and beautiful gardens.

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/the-big-draw.

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

To find out more about Milner House, please call 01372 278 992 or email Customer Relations Manager, Georgie Wilkins, on georgie.wilkins@careuk.com.

For more general information, please visit: careuk.com/milner-house.