New York, New York - WCMT

Jenny travels to the Big Apple

I have finally finished my first week in the USA and it feels like it has gone on forever! In a good way, I’d like to add. I had a four day working week and then had a few days break from visits, to take in some of the New York sights. I was getting a little worn out so I think that it came at the perfect time in my trip! But first let’s talk about my visits before discussing play. When I arrived in New York I got a bus from the airport to my accommodation in Brooklyn (I used airbnb, so I was staying with locals) which seemed to take the better part of forever. When they asked how I had travelled from the airport, my hosts were horrified to learn of my mode of transport and questioned how I had survived with all limbs and bags accounted for - “I don’t want to tell you not to get the bus… But don’t get the bus”. So I spent the rest of the week cycling around Brooklyn, which admittedly was a much more pleasant way of seeing the area.

 My first port of call was Gary Glazner, Founder of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP). On the day I spent with him, I observed a poetry session and was amazed by the reactions the ‘call and response’ method evoked. Gary, as the group leader, recited lines from well-known poems which the group then echoed back to him. In the second half of the session this was then used as inspiration to create their own poem as a group, although any topic can be picked. Once the poem was finished it was then recited by the group as a final product. All the participants clearly felt comfortable in the environment, giving them a space in which they could safely express emotions and feelings, with everyone’s point being valid no matter how many times they repeated it. Conversation and songs naturally flowed if participants felt they wanted to say something, with impromptu songs and comments springing from nowhere and being draw into the mix. After having agreed that the theme of the song was ‘making money, honey’, my favourite response to Gary’s question “so what could we do make some money?” was from a particularly mischievous lady who replied “sell our bodies”! The morning was filled with laughter and jokes, making the whole experience enjoyable to both participate in and observe.

After the session had finished Gary and I had some time to talk about the training he does for groups in the aged care sector to help them connect with people living with dementia, including family caregivers, healthcare workers and artists. The focus is on engagement, using simple techniques to elicit positive responses and techniques to create new poems. The APP also has a teaching manual "Sparking Memories: The Alzheimer's Poetry Project Anthology" which has information about the techniques and the medical implications of using poetry. Training can be done face to face, but Gary also offers virtual training, consisting of hour long skype sessions each week with time in between to use learning and report back. This blended approach is crucial in ensuring that practices become ingrained in people’s behaviour, rather than an individual simply learning skills and not having any practical experience before training ends. Once again, the best case studies Gary spoke about were those that had the backing of upper management (yes I am starting to sound like a broken record – leadership and management)! After doing training sessions in one facility, he returned a few years later to find that, although all the original frontline staff members had changed, the knowledge and understanding had been passed on and poetry sessions were still taking place. The fact that management understood and valued the APP ensured that new members of staff were encouraged and supported throughout the learning process.

A day with Christopher Nadeau, Executive Director at The New York Memory Centre (NYMC), was next on my agenda. The NYMC offers many different services including adult day care that focuses on non-pharmaceutical interventions, care giver support services, computer cognitive training for those with memory problems and staff and care giver educational training. I observed a percussion session with artist in residence David Azarch and a music session with artist in residence Ismail Butera. Seeing the different styles of artists made me appreciate how individual each form is and also highlighted the variation for participants. The day care service also offers a huge range of other creative programmes such as poetry, theatre, painting, sculpting, multimedia expression, dance and yoga. There was something for everyone!

I was particularly interested in the relationship between the staff and artists in residence. Staff members took an active role in facilitation, both within sessions and between them, and I asked Christopher more about what training they have in the creative arts. He explained that they have knowledge assessed training in areas such as dementia, but the learning process for artistic initiatives was less formal, with much of their understanding being gained through shadowing artists during sessions. During the induction phase for new starters, underpinning knowledge is also developed by a training package about the philosophy of the centre. Once again, the focus is on increasing understanding of the value of artistic and creative initiatives and, from this basis, building practical knowledge through hands on learning.

My last two days were spent with Judy Kamilhor, Brooklyn Public Library’s Coordinator of Older Adult Services, who creates and maintains a huge range of services that stretch across the 58 neighbourhood branches. The department’s main services that go out into the community are ‘Books by Mail’, library books sent out through the mail for older people who are homebound, and ‘Books to Go’, that offer a kind of mobile library for groups in communal settings such as care homes. Inside the libraries themselves, the Creative Ageing initiative runs regular programmes, each one usually spanning over 8 weeks and consisting of a minimum of 16 learning hours. These programmes are facilitated by professional artists and Judy had kindly arranged for a session to coincide with my visit; ‘Room for Everyone: An Afternoon with Poems’ by Jess Greenbaum. This was a three hour poetry taster session and I was extremely impressed with the intellectual and thought provoking content, which managed to keep me fully engaged for the whole three hours even though I wasn’t even taking an active role in the session! Judy herself sat in, which is something she tries to do regularly not only to ensure quality control, but also as both personal and professional development.

I was also lucky enough to catch an ‘Exergamers’ session, an activity that is new to the programme and sees older adults using the Xbox™ bowling game. Different library locations throughout New York compete in virtual bowling competitions, helping to develop social networks not only in their own location but also with older adults throughout the whole area.  Another Creative Ageing programme that I found particularly interesting was ‘Our Streets, Our Stories’, that focussed on capturing and documenting the diverse stories from older people in the area (many of whom emigrated to the country) through in depth interviews. Training on interviewing techniques and how to use technical recording equipment was not only for staff but for people in the community – teaching older adults to capture the stories of older adults! Now that is a creative concept. What is happening here is a crucial development in the relationship that the library has with its surrounding community; a shift from sending out stories and telling people what to read to a focus on providing people with the tools to collect and create their own stories.

So how are these innovative ideas and the culture shift that comes with them cultivated? The library has a comprehensive training package ‘Everyone Serves Seniors’ that includes a series of sessions and publications. Judy is also currently updating it to cover even more ground in the arts and creativity field, with the finished product hopefully also including sessions with guest artist speakers around specific topics. The overriding aim of the training is to ensure that everyone understands how to give all older people great service. I can’t wait to see the new package and, from what I have seen, I am sure that it will lead the way in arts and creativity within the library system.

Once my working week was over, I had a few days down time with my partner Sam, who came over from England for the weekend. Most of the photos this week are from touristy things as there weren’t many opportunities in the visits for snaps, but hopefully they have brightened up your reading. Some of the main events included; 

• going up the Rockefeller building at sunset 
• a boat trip to see the Statue of Liberty
• a musical lunch on Broadway
• walks through Central Park 
• a trip to the Sea, Air and Space museum 

We definitely packed lots in to just a few days! Well that’s all for now and I’ll catch up with you next week!