From the GEM Office

 

Sounding Out Your Heritage

 

BEST PRACTICE:

Using learning to improve health and well-being in older adults

Tuesday 25 May 2010 at St George’s Centre, Chatham Maritime, Kent

This free one-day conference is for all those interested in improving older people’s health, confidence and quality of life through heritage learning.

 

 

Improving access to informal learning for older people in residential care, day care and sheltered housing settings can have an overwhelmingly positive impact on their health and confidence, and dramatically improve the quality of their lives.  This conference will help care professionals understand the positive impact of on-going heritage learning, and find out how they can develop similar programmes.

 

You will learn from participants, project staff and partners who were recently involved in  Sounding Out Your Heritage – a pilot heritage learning project for the over 60s.  You will also:

• hear about the project’s outputs and outcomes
• be advised of the practicalities and potential pitfalls of these initiatives
• share good practice and lessons learned
• develop your work in heritage learning for the over 60s
• brainstorm ways of embedding this type of activity in your day to day work
• look at ways of working with the over 60s to keep them living independently longer
• network and find new partners

 

The conference is the culmination of GEM’s Sounding Out Your Heritage project funded by the Transformation Fund as part of a ‘learning for pleasure’ initiative spearheaded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. 

 

GEM is also publishing a Sounding Out Your Heritage toolkit which will be available in print and online.  This toolkit will enable more individuals and organisations to plan informal heritage learning activities with the over 60s, and explain how such activities can improve the quality of their lives.  All delegates attending the conference will receive a printed copy.

 

For the past few months, GEM’s Sounding Out Your Heritage pilot project has been encouraging over 60s in Kent to come together to explore, discover and shout about their heritage as a way of improving the quality of their lives.  The six participating groups have ‘sounded out’ about their accomplishments in a series of celebration events.  These events were an opportunity to exhibit the six finished project resources.  These resources include a book of individual stories and images; audio recordings and a memory box; a series of leaflets that highlight individuals’ stories and interests; a sensory quilt inspired by the group’s love of music and dance; audio recordings about a community’s colourful past and a recipe book that shares stories related to favourite foods.

 

Who should attend?

 

• Senior managers of sheltered housing schemes and care homes wishing to partner with heritage organisations to deliver learning activities for their residents.
• Care (including dementia and nursing care) staff wanting practical help in meeting best practice requirements
• Heritage managers wanting to develop quality learning provision for the over 60s.
• Heritage education professionals wanting to find out more about working with over 60s.
• Project participants wishing to share their experiences and encourage similar activities.

 

 

Outline Programme

 

10.00    Registration & refreshments

 

10.30    First session – Short presentations:

• SOYH’s outputs and outcomes
• best practice spelt out by a housing professional
• the benefits for heritage educators
• what it was like to be a participant

 

11.30    Second session – Roundtable workshops
Housing, care and heritage sectors working together better to deliver on-going heritage learning activities. 

 

12.30    Plenary

 

13.00    Buffet lunch & networking

            An opportunity for delegates to meet participants and view the resources they have produced.

 

14.00    Third session – Evaluation & toolkit

            An introduction to the toolkit and how to implement best practice

 

15.00    Fourth session – Roundtable workshops

            The way forward

 

15.45    Plenary

 

16.00    Celebratory drinks & departure

 

 

How to book

 

To ensure your free place at this event, please click “reply” to this email and then scroll down to fill in the booking form at the bottom of this email and then click “send”.  Be careful not to send it to everyone by clicking “reply to all”!  This may not work if you are not viewing the email as HTML.

 

Alternatively, download the booking form from the GEM website www.gem.org.uk or contact the GEM office: [log in to unmask] or 01634 853 424.

 

Sara Wallington

Administrator

GEM, 54 Balmoral Road, Gillingham, Kent, ME7 4PG, UK

Tel/Fax:  +44 (0) 1634 853424

Email: [log in to unmask]

www.gem.org.uk

 

GEM is a registered charity number 1090995 and a company limited by guarantee register in England number 149246

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