Creative Journeys Report 2019

32 Creative Journeys In addition, there were also sometimes challenging dynamics and different needs within the smaller group, for example cognitively impaired residents being loud or outspoken which disrupted the group or upset other residents. [S]ometimes, not all the residents can hear each other. So, it can become quite difficult and frustrating, so they can become louder and stuff like that, and then other residents get upset. (Stage one staff member) Indeed a couple of the residents in stage one who were not cognitively impaired, reported difficulties interacting with other residents who had dementia. There aren’t many other residents, where I am, that I can talk to. Most of them have got dementia. There are not that many I can talk to, and have a proper conversation with. (Stage one resident) These dynamics had to be carefully managed between the arts facilitators and activities coordinators. One of the survey respondents stated that although the residents might enjoy the activities, they rarely communicated to each other about it, but this was a lone voice with most survey respondents commenting that the activities helped to promote interaction and therefore bonding. An issue that was raised in the case study interviews was that the arts organisations providing the activities could only work with a limited number of people in a session. This was partly due to the size of the available space, but it is also a quality issue with the arts organisation stipulating the optimum number of participants in a session. The implication of this is that not all residents had the opportunity to take part and therefore missed the opportunity to form new bonds with the residents who had been involved; an issue that will be considered further in the discussion. Previous research has shown that older people in care home settings often find it difficult to interact and establish meaningful relationships with other residents around them. Nonetheless, our findings suggest that overall, participatory arts activities had a positive impact on the social relationships between residents. This included enabling verbal and non-verbal communication and interaction, facilitating and discovering shared experiences, and promoting social connectedness between each other. The next section will consider the impact of participatory arts on the social relationships between residents and staff in care homes. 4.3 Relationships between residents and staff The caring relationship between carers and those cared-for has been the focus of much research (e.g. Berg, Berntsson and Danielson, 2006; Berg and Danielson, 2007; Custers et al., 2012), but little attention has been given to the social relationships that can develop between care staff and residents. It has previously been reported that an over-emphasis on the formal caring relationship and over-concern about maintaining a harmonious atmosphere in care homes can contribute to a superficial and distant relationship between staff and residents; whereas building close rapport takes time and involves repeated reciprocal social interactions (Lung and Liu, 2016). However, in addition to impacting on relationships between residents, participatory arts have the potential to influence and build social relationships between residents and staff in care homes (as has