Ideas Exchange 2022/2023

What did the project involve? 

This project formed the initial stages and early interactions to develop into a larger project which would aim to bring together researchers, Alive Activities co-ordinators, artists, brewers, carers and residents of care homes to grow hops in the grounds of care homes in Bristol, explore local histories and cultures of brewing in the South West, and cultivate the hops to make beer for residents to sample.

The project would involve developing activity sessions that explore and celebrate the cultural heritage of brewing and drinking, and provide an opportunity for reminiscence and a connection to the natural world, the local community, and therapeutic horticulture. The creative activities would enable rich sensory experiences through gardening, singing folk songs, object handling sessions, brewery visits and beer tasting. The activities would build towards a communal goal amongst residents and homes – producing a beer via their own endeavours in growing hops. It would also provide the opportunity for residents to connect with one another and the local brewing community via a sister project in Bristol (The Bristol Hops Collective) through which the wider community grow hops and brew beer.

This initial stage of the project involved the following activities.

• Assembling a Team – Bringing together a multi-disciplinary team across the research-practice sphere (e.g. academics, socially engaged artists, the Bristol Hops Collective, Alive Activities).
• Literature Reviewing – Identifying gaps in research and practice, drawing on academic and grey literatures.
• Developing Methods – Working in collaboration with Alive Activities and care homes to identify creative methods for engaging with residents and carers. Our methods and approach will enable the co-creation of knowledge that is of use to Alive and academic researchers.
• Negotiating roles/times/resources and the budget. E.g., explore possibilities and costs of working with an artist to create learning materials for running sessions (a booklet/kit or curating sensory resources for handling, tasting, smelling).
• Develop recruitment strategy and ethics – in collaboration with Alive, careful negotiation around access and ethics, given we are working with people with dementia.
• Outputs – Developing ideas for creative outputs and identifying audiences. E.g., explore the audiences who might be interested in using the pack (e.g., Arts and wellbeing practitioners, Care homes, etc).

Through this process, the researchers built the following partnerships towards the development of the larger project:

• Researchers from other disciplines. Partially a social historian with interests in the history of drinking, or a researcher in Adult Social Care, ageing and masculinities. They also sought to contact others from the Drinking Studies network and the Ageing Futures Network.
• Alive Activities - Guy Manchester (Community Gardening Facilitator) and George Densley (Service Development Manager). Guy set up Bristol’s first dementia friendly allotment, Co-founded the Bristol Hops Collective, and has experience growing hops in care homes and engaging residents. He specialises in working with people with dementia though growing activities. George has extensive experience running community arts and wellbeing services.
• Artist. They aimed to collaborate with an artist who helped shape creative making activities, preferably an artist who has a socially engaged practice and a commitment to creative co-production, including in residential care settings.
• Brewery. The team included a Brewery who will facilitate the brewing process, but also who will be invited to be included within the wider co-design process.

Who are the team and what do they bring?

• Alice Williatt (Education, University of Bristol) is a researcher who brings together feminist theories of care and materiality with participatory research practice to explore themes around ageing, care, wellbeing, culture and creativity.
• Martin Preston (Education, University of Bristol) is a researcher with extensive experience in the education sector. He is interested in co-produced research achieved through creative methods. He has volunteered with Alive Activities for several years in his community in Barton Hill Bristol, and in a pilot hop growing project. He is a qualified teacher and forest school leader trained in learner-directed approaches to education and have built and managed an award-winning garden focused upon inter-generational learning
• Alive Activities are a charity with expertise in dementia friendly activities. Alive are award winning for their growing related activities with older people and have received national recognition in the Charity and Ageing sectors.

What is to come?

One potential output of the larger project would include the development of an open-access pack or toolkit of sensory activities and growing guidance that would allow activities providers to run sessions in care homes. The research would co-generate important learning around the significance of this cultural activity for the wellbeing and quality of life of care home residents, particularly men who are underrepresented in research on the value of cultural activities in dementia care settings.

The project will challenge entrenched cultural imaginaries and representations of life with dementia as characterised by loss, physical and cognitive decline, and death. It also aims to disrupt dominant medicalised representations of residential care provision and care settings as purely being focused around attending to bodily needs. It responds to stigmatisation and social exclusion that people with dementia often face by developing opportunities for social connection within and beyond care homes in ways that aim to ensure people with dementia can live well together, and maintain their dignity, identity and purpose.