I popped into the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS) yesterday morning to have a chat with a few of the staff about the work they had been doing on dementia. I had thought, incorrectly, that IRISS was centered around research in the mental health field, which, apparently is a common mistake. What they actually do is gather information and evidence that is pre-existing and use it to develop tools and techniques to improve the care system. Their work carries through to promoting the use of these outcomes in care communities.
The main focus of our discussion was the ‘Creative Quarter‘ project, which is all about encouraging practitioners to think differently about their approach to care, using creativity to promote better outcomes. The project has three strands; one strand is trying to understand the use of the arts in social services, another is trying to support people to develop new ideas and new enterprises, locally in communities, and the third is trying to improve creative practice; helping practitioners to work together and also use a variety of different methods in their practice to try and improve quality of life. They ran a number of workshops and event to try and expose people to the different methodologies.
IRISS works with all areas of mental health and social care and their work with creativity carried throughout. I think it’s really interesting that creativity can have such a positive effect on people’s wellbeing, particularly since many people think that they lack creativity.
Another thing which we talked about was the importance of changing a person with dementia’s routine. In particular one story about a couple stood out to me. After receiving his diagnoses, a man and his wife found that all the fun had gone out of their life, they had planned a visit to the Dementia center in Stirling (DSDC) to find out exactly what to expect. They found that they really enjoyed going out on that day trip, visiting somewhere new and had had a lot of fun. This is something that has come up again and again, changing routines and breaking the cycle of monotony to really stimulate the brain and improve quality of life.
There is loads of information on both the IRISS and Creative Quarter websites so I will be revisiting both in future posts.
Marigold 