Drama Lecturer Dr Niamh Malone and Artistic Director of RMD Memory Matters Creative Arts Company Donna Miles facilitated a very successful training day for carers of people living with dementia.
The workshop explored enhancing communication skills through the employment of arts interventions. Donna Miles, who is a Liverpool Hope graduate, based the session on the ‘Can Do’ principle, which seeks to give confidence and empower the carer alongside the person living with dementia.
The workshop is part of larger project Forgotten Futures and the City, which is an applied theatre project conducted in a number of nursing homes in and around the city of Liverpool and part of the TATE Exchange Programme 2018.
The inspiration for the project was Sue Mayo’s (2014) observation that older people need to be engaged in more ‘future-orientated’ discussions.
Forgotten Futures explores the power of the imagination and the here and now. This enables reciprocal transfers of knowledge and understanding between the city and nursing homes, and works towards breaking down the walls that divide and segregate people living with dementia in residential care. The project invites participants to visualise the future of Liverpool as a city and its endless possibilities.