ARU Research Report 2019

22 The Up Project Opportunities to Shine Many care home residents were described as uniquely transformed by their time with the children. This change in the older adults was described positively, yet was sometimes difficult to articulate in concrete terms by those who witnessed it. It was sometimes described as the older adults ‘lighting up’ when in the presence of children, although was something that had to be observed first hand in order to be truly understood: ‘It’s just lovely, I just, yeah unless you see it it’s so hard to explain’ (Care home staff) ‘I think you have to see it, it’s so hard to explain, it’s really hard to explain but you can see the joy on their faces, you can see their whole wellbeing, it helps…It’s just the smiles on their faces, they really, really do light up; it’s a different kind of smile and you just see the body language’ (Care home staff) The enjoyment shared was described by care home staff to uplift the mood of older adults that took part. For some older adults this was a transient or momentary experience, for others however the uplifts in mood and behaviour seemed to last outside the children’s visits: ‘Some of them could be really grumpy in the morning and say for example they’re having a bad day. They come in or they come and do the Up project with the children, the children are here and they come back and their mood has just changed. They’re happy or you can see in their face that they’ve really enjoyed what they’ve been doing. Their behaviour and their mood changes.’ (Care home staff) The visits were an opportunity for older adults to get excited, which care home staff felt implied the meaningfulness of the visits to older adults. A number of staff members mentioned how the residents would express their anticipation of the next session, sometimes recording the weekly event in their diaries as an event to look forward to. Older adults with dementia were included among those who remembered and anticipated the visits: ‘They were always talking about them. “Oh, when are the children coming back?” Things like that….Their face lit up when we say, “Oh, we’ve got the children coming.” “Oh, lovely. What time?” It might be, say, two o’clock. They say, “Don’t forget. At two o’clock I want to get in there.” “Yeah, okay.” “Don’t forget me.” So, they did, and they remembered it. Sometimes people with, like, dementia and things like that, you forget things, but they remembered, which was a good thing.’ (Care home staff) The presence of children in care home activities was considered to be a particularly effective measure for engaging residents, alongside activities that involved animals and music. However, the after effect of the intergenerational activity was said to set it apart from other activities which would go on within the care home: ‘When the children have gone, they come back to their units and they sit and talk about what they’ve done and you can really see some of the residents are so, they’ve been uplifted and they’re so happy and it’s something you don’t necessarily see from other activities that go on within the home.’ (Care home staff) The children and the activities provided a trigger for positive reminiscence and retrieval of long term memories regarding the older adults’ own children or childhoods. Discussing universal activities and experiences such as childhood games provided a means of commonality between the older adults and children: ‘I think it does take them back a bit to their own childhoods and it all depends on what games they play; if it used to be games like skittles say, that they may have perhaps played back then, then they start talking about how they used to play it and who they used to play it with and it brings so much out of the resident than you would think.’ (Domestic at care home)