ARU Research Report 2019

28 The Up Project Relatives also described how the children’s visits emulated the normal structure of communities outside the care home, where diverse ages interacting would be anticipated. They suggested it gave the care home a sense of normality and the older adults living with it: ‘It normalises it because you’ve got people of all ages which is how society is, isn’t it? And, if you don’t have children around then it’s, part of society is missing, so I think it’s good for them.’ (Relative) “It brings a little bit of normality..’ (Relative) Feeding into this ethos of community, children were described as developing ‘good’ community skills, such as tolerance, unselfishness and compassion, by care home staff and teaching staff. They felt such skills will would allow children to acknowledge their shared responsibility, making them assets their community: ‘I think it helps the children to see perspective of life on how they can help elderly people, let’s face it, today, what’s happening, in their roles. Being kinder to someone and be patient and helpful and whatever… It is also nice for the children to help the adults as well, because you don’t often see that in schools and things like that. I really do think that they need to learn about that. A bit of positiveness and helpfulness, because it comes to a lot of people, and it does.’ (Care home staff) Care home staff also described how the visits allowed the older adults to be assets, offering the children their knowledge and teaching: ‘I think it’s lovely, it’s really nice to see everyone come together and I think it’s really nice for the whole community to be able to come in and take part and help with the residents and obviously it’s nice for the children as well to have that older generation to teach the children as well because these days I don’t feel that people get the time at home, like they used to years ago and I think a lot of the younger generation nowmiss out on that and I think that’s quite sad but that’s the way life is now.’ (Care home staff). For children they described how they could now transfer their learning from their interactions with older adults at care home into everyday life and society, providing them with the ability to engage with others in the community: ‘I feel you would know how to speak to them and know what to do when you speak to them, so you’re not as shy as you would be, if they need help getting something from the shelves, or they may need help finding things, you can actually tell them, help them, because you’ve spoken to people with dementia, so it’s easier to speak to them than it is, just knowing, because once you’ve spoken to someone who already has it it will be easier to speak with them, than if you’ve never spoken with them before.‘ (Child 7)