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

Residents at a care home in Poole 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 The Potteries, on York Road, has 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 The Potteries set the task of drawing popular birds, including robins, sparrows, and owls, using a range of pencils and paints. The drawings 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. 

Zita Turner, Home Manager at The Potteries, said: “The Big Draw Festival is a fantastic initiative to get October ‘off to a flying art’, which residents have enjoyed and looked forward to for a third year running.  

“Here at The Potteries, 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”. 

The Potteries has recently attained the Care Homes Accreditation Quality Hallmark Award. Awarded by the Gold Standards Framework, the award recognises homes that demonstrate exceptional end of life and palliative care for residents and offers high-quality support and guidance for their family members. To be accredited, the home had to show that it met a strict criteria in 20 different areas, ranging from leadership and support to dignity and respect, as well as submit a portfolio of evidence showing it had halved the number of residents needing hospital treatment and passing away at hospital. 

The Potteries is a state-of-the-art care home which provides full-time residential, nursing and dementia care, as well as short-term respite care. Designed to enable residents to live enjoyable and fulfilling lives, in addition to the Namaste room, the care home also boasts its very own cinema and hair salon. There is also plenty of space, both indoors and out, for relaxation and recreation. The home has a comprehensive activity programme, offering a mix of themed events and group activities.

For more information about The Potteries, please call Customer Relations Manager, Caroline Hearne, at caroline.hearne@careuk.com or call on 01202 069 835.

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.

For more general information, please visit: careuk.com/the-potteries.