ARU Research Report 2019

The Up Project 25 ‘I think it’s wonderful, the smiles on their [older adults] faces is just out of this world; they are so excited to see them [children] and it does, it makes a huge difference.’ (Care home staff) ‘We have a couple of ladies who are impaired so they [the children] really get involved with those a lot more and give them the support they need. So, it’s actually like having a bunch of little carers running around looking after the residents, playing games and spending time genuinely getting to know the residents and genuinely talking to them so yeah.’ (Care home Staff) Teaching staff described these relationships to be particularly significant to children who do have older figures in their lives, providing them a window into the lives and experiences of others not usually encountered: ‘I think that they realise that they can actually engage with not just their peers but any aged adult and for some of them, they don’t have that opportunity to do so if they don’t have grandparents. I definitely think they have a bit more patience with people as well, I think. There’s some nice traits that they can learn…it’s an opportunity for a child that doesn’t have grandparents or that doesn’t have any sort of relationship with an older person to be able to gain that relationship.’ (Teach ing staff) Care home staff and children shared the same sentiment about older adults, feeling that the visits were particularly important for those who might be isolated: ‘I think for the children as well as the residents, the children obviously enjoy that coming out of school and so many of the residents and staff feel so at home here and I think it just feels like, to them, they literally just feel like their relatives are coming in to the home. So, for some people who might not see their relatives very often, it’s seeing different people and it’s very uplifting and when they’re here, the atmosphere and the environment is just, everything just seems so jolly and well organised and it’s just, they all seem to really enjoy it..’ (Teaching staff) ‘Maybe it [visits] made them happier because they were always alone, so it’s just a care home, usually they get no visitors, if they had maybe a son or a daughter they could have got visitors, but usually they don’t get visitors, so it made them happier, made them more active, so that they have something to do, because they’re sitting down bored, maybe listening to music, they don’t really have phones to entertain themselves, so they usually rely on visitors who come, or otherwise they just chat and sit.’ (Child 7) For relatives they described it as an opportunity for not only mutual connection but also understanding, including older adults understanding of younger people. “Like mum said, ages mixing, interacting with each other. Younger people being able to understand problems of older people and vice versa really. Just mixing the age of younger generations really. Yeah and not every young person has got older relatives. They might not have grandparents. They might not understand any problems and vice versa. I mean mum’s got grandchildren, but some people haven’t so it’s good to understand because things change so much, don’t they, over the years? Some children don’t grow up with grandparents. They don’t understand the problems with older people, do they? Not just problems but the needs of them I suppose I mean.” (Relative)

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA4ODM=