ARU Research Report 2019

20 The Up Project Luckily, we haven’t had anything too [bad]…We do tell them what they might come across or what they might expect. One lady regresses and she’ll be with you having a lovely conversation and then she will go, “Oh, shut up you,” and she starts getting a little bit cross and angry. We’ve said to them, “Oh, don’t worry about them, they’re not there anymore,” and try and get them back on track with the conversation and then she’s back with you, but we try and explain that.’ (Teaching staff) Ageing & Declining Health Incidents which had occurred historically, yet could potentially occur during future visits, were described by the teaching staff as challenges which the children, care home and teaching staff would have to navigate in the future. Given the ageing population of the care home, the glare of declining health and death is a reality, one which teaching staff accepted was an inevitable facet of engaging with older adults in a care home. While they were yet to confront the death of a resident with the children, they had confronted incidents where residents had fallen or become unwell. They addressed this by reassuring the children that the older adults were in a safe and caring environment: ‘Yes, so last year there was a resident that had fallen over in the corridor, not where we were but a couple of the children had gone out to the toilet and seen that there was somebody on the floor. So after that we just had a chat about and just said look, unfortunately some of them are old and they do trip or whatever, but it’s nothing to worry about, they’re there to look after, that’s why they’re in that home.’ (Teaching staff) It was clear from the stories of children there were key characters which all children spoke of, and those they became accustomed to seeing. Teaching staff acknowledged in future they will have to confront the loss of older adults who take part: ‘And I think for themwhen they don’t see somebody, it’s like being in class and you’ve got your best friend missing, isn’t it, you’re used to seeing them in that environment and when they’re not there it feels a bit odd. Because this group are relatively new it didn’t matter if Audrey wasn’t there or if Reginald wasn’t there because they’re not used to seeing them on a regular basis. But as you get further down the line, towards the end of last year one of the residents passed away and it was how do we play that, because there was a fewweeks leading up to that where she hadn’t been in the lounge area anyway because she hadn’t been very well. So the children got to a point where they weren’t expecting to see her but we haven’t had it yet where one of the residents…But it will be, obviously, unfortunately, one of those things you have to deal with isn’t it, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I think.. it’s really hard because you don’t, obviously it is part of life and it is something that being there with the elderly residents, we kind of accept that it’s going to happen but we haven’t had to deal with it just yet, but I hope that we don’t.’ (Teaching staff) The school has made connections to a hospice so they will be able to gain advice and support relating to death and bereavement if needed. What Are the Benefits to Older Adults & the Care Home? Much like the experiences of children and teaching staff, care home staff and relatives described the interactions and activities between older adults and the children with positivity, appreciating the contribution it made to the day-to-day life of the care home and its inhabitants. New Perspectives The interactions between the children and older adults allowed children and staff to see the older adults from a new perspective. The joint activities, as well as the presence of children, provided the conditions for which older adults’ unique traits, personalities and identities could emerge.