Perth - City of change and inspiration - WCMT fellowship

Jenny brings us her first Travelling Fellowship Blog from Perth

Today you find me sitting on a plane somewhere between Perth and Melbourne. With most of the contents of my vegetarian enchilada on my lap (why on earth they would choose a meal difficult to eat neatly on the ground let alone in the air is beyond me), I thought that this would be an ideal opportunity to note down some of my adventures from this amazing first week on my Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship.
I arrived last Sunday and my first impression of Perth was a city of continuous construction. I have never seen so many buildings and roads being dug up, rebuilt and upgraded all at the same time. Safe to say that the local distributer of traffic cones probably never has to work another day in his life. However, apart from the jungle of scaffolding that appeared to envelope half the city, Perth seemed like a very agreeable place. My first meeting was on the Monday with Pilar Kasat, Director of the Community Arts Network Western Australia (CAN WA), and I arrived feeling decidedly underdressed after navigating through an area of town that appeared to include every designer shop known to man. Pilar was an excellent host (and by that I mean that she immediately offered me a cup English Breakfast tea) and was very happy to be used as a guinea pig for the questionnaire that I developed for my trip.

 The purpose of the meeting was to learn more about ‘Bush Babies’, one of a series of projects that CAN WA has run over the last 6 years as part of their wider strategy ‘Rekindling Stories from the Country’. The aim of Bush Babies is to capture stories from local aboriginal people and preserve their language and culture, with many of the aboriginal elders featured in it having been born at a time where they were not allowed to live in towns and were therefore born in the ‘bush’. The project has incorporated a number of artistic mediums throughout the years including storytelling, photography, intergenerational workshops and painting exhibitions. For me, the beauty of the project is the organic progression between the different forms, which was predominantly driven by the aboriginal community themselves, and really showcases the advantages of empowering a group that would traditionally be seen as the ‘subjects’ of art.

On Tuesday morning I visited the Bush Babies painting exhibition at the WA Museum and learnt more about the people involved and the process through which it has developed. In the afternoon I thought I would use my free half day to take in some of the sights. Having decided to visit a nearby island that I had been told had kangaroos on it, I set off from my hostel with high hopes. After a lovely walk down the river, I arrived to find an island that was slightly bigger than I had first thought. Kangaroos, while not the smallest of animals, are deceptively hard to spot in vegetation and if a small group of German tourists hadn’t been standing deadly still in the distance I doubt I would have found any of them. When I approached I was amazed at how tame they were and, after an affectionate rub of their heads, I decided my Australian experience had really begun.

On Wednesday I spent the day with Kate Campbell-Pope, an occupational therapist and professional artist who is a member of the Society for the Arts in Dementia Care and works for Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts Australia (DADAA). She showed me many examples of creative projects that she had facilitated throughout her career. My personal favourite was the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project which started after a scientist found it much easier to map hyperbolic expansion using crochet rather than computer technology! One of the key points that I took away from my meeting with Kate, apart from the diverse range of creative opportunities available to older people in the area, was a greater understanding of the importance of mentoring in Australia. Within her own organisation, DADAA, informal methods such as this are heavily supported and state funding is available specifically for mentoring opportunities. Mentoring is also not just something for the young. Professionals of every age are encouraged to use this method to learn more about areas that others specialise in, with the length of mentoring being indefinite. The opportunities for skills development and the view of learning as a continual process makes mentoring an interesting alternative to more traditional methods of knowledge acquisition and something that I definitely want to learn more about throughout my stay.

I spent the next two days with Sandy Crowe, a Dementia Care Consultant and Spark of Life Master Practitioner for Southern Cross Care, and Hilary Lee, the Founder and Director of Spark of Life and Chair of the Society for the Arts in Dementia Care. Spark of Life is a whole systems approach and aims to implement the essence of person centred care by igniting the ‘spark’ within all older people. What I found particularly interesting about the approach is that, before any culture enrichment initiatives are started within the organisation, all board members and higher management need to sign an agreement stating that they understand the approach and fully support it. Having this formalised backing is crucial in ensuring that creative programmes are seen as important and respected throughout the whole organisation.

Resident going to 'Sunshine Club'

The training and development process needed to achieve this culture change is extensive and clearly laid out by Spark of Life. Becoming a Master Practitioner is the highest level of training offered and is an intensive three week course, teaching individuals to be educators in Spark of Life. Potential Master Practitioners also go through an application process before the course, thereby ensuring that only people with the right attitude and value base are accepted. At the next level down there is the Spark of Life Certified Practitioner course, to give practitioners an understanding of the scientific basis on which the approach was developed, and the Club Facilitator training course, which trains individuals on the frontline to effectively facilitate the ‘Sunshine Club’ programmes with residents. I had the privilege of seeing a Sunshine Club in action on Thursday and observed the first programme in one of the Southern Cross Care homes. The aim of the Sunshine Club is make each ‘member’ feel unique and special as part of this exclusive club. The placement of individuals in certain groups is very careful and based on a three level system, with level 3 usually quite early stage dementia and levels 1 and 2 being later stage, thereby ensuring that groups merge well.

Jenny with SADC Board Members

On Saturday I was picked up by Maree, another board member of the Society for the Arts in Dementia Care, and attended a group learning session. Each session is based around a small number of specific subjects and activities. The focus of this session included practical elements on the use of sand in occupational therapy activities and a short training session on life story books. The majority of attendees were occupational therapy assistants and they were given time to experience the sand activity themselves, from a resident’s perspective. The importance of this cannot be understated, with the group making many practical observations as they explored the activity and understanding the sense of achievement from a first-hand perspective.

So that was my week! It was packed full of ideas, experiences and truly person centred people. I feel like I have already seen so much and I’m looking forward to the next stage in my adventure. Look out for my update about what’s going on in Melbourne next week, where I will be visiting Emmy Monash Aged Care and the MAC.ART Program.

Jenny