The Bristol workshop, held on Wednesday 17th April at the Rose Green Centre in Bristol, was very successful. It started with talks from the Chinese Community Wellbeing Society and Dhek Bhal, who laid out the challenges they faced. For example, dementia awareness and diagnosis difficulties were making access to support services patchy. This prompted thinking on how co-creative arts/relational care might respond to this situation. This was followed by talks from Alive Activities. Firstly, George Densley, who spoke about love in participatory arts practice – this was really interesting, a new way of thinking about the topic. This was followed by Nicola Taylor, who spoke on music for people living with dementia and finally Isobel Jones on approaches to meaningful activity and care home support. In the afternoon we had several activities – story threads, seated movement to music and singing.

The day was as follows

10.30 – 11.00 Tea/coffee

11.00 – 11.15 Introduction/scene setting Andrew Newman   

11.15 – 12.15 Short talks on co-created arts and relational care. Speakers from:

Chinese Community Wellbeing Society

Dhek Bhal

George Densley, love in participatory arts practice.

Nicola Taylor, music for people living with dementia.

Isobel Jones, approaches to meaningful activity and care home support.

12.15 – 13.00 Lunch

13.00 –15.00   Activities for Chinese community and South Asian community members

Story Threads, Stevie Thompson, George Densley (drop in)

Seated movement to music, Nicola Taylor (30min)

Music – Singing

Chinese community

South Asian community 

15.00 –16.00   Tea/coffee, conclusion/wrap up

Representatives from the following organisations were present.

Dhek Bhal, Bristol https://www.dhekbhal.org.uk/

Chinese Community Wellbeing Society, Bristol https://chinesecws.org.uk/

Bristol Culture and Creative Industries, Bristol, City Council

Bristol Museums https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/

Bristol Dementia Wellbeing Service https://bristoldementiawellbeing.org/

Alive Activities, Bristol https://aliveactivities.org/

Equal Arts, Bristol https://www.equalarts.org.uk/

Bristol University https://www.bristol.ac.uk/

Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne https://www.ncl.ac.uk/

University of the West of England, Bristol https://www.uwe.ac.uk/

The videos below are recordings of interviews with, Isobel Jones, (CEO) Alive Activities, George Densley (Projects and Partnership Manager) also from Alive Activities and representatives from the Chinese Community Wellbeing Society.