Happy Christmas.

Sometimes special occasions give us an opportunity to spread the love. Pushing aside expectation, responsibility and lack of time to do everything, spend some time playing with those you care for in whatever way suits you. The true magic of these times is in making connections and what better way to do so than through play. I hope it's a special time for you.

Similar pattern, but different expressions! The joy of handmade.

A wishing dragon is perfect for uplifting someone's day. Put your hand is Doris's mouth and pull out a wish!

Time To Say Goodbye

Acting skills and performance for people with special needs offers valuable new learning for all, confidence building and an opportunity to be part of something quite special. We have been working with two groups in this way this year and we are so pleased with the new friends we have made and the success of both performances. At the heart of this work was making sure each group member felt valued and respected, that we had plenty of fun and that we used the group's ideas to put a performance together. Treating each person as a professional actor added to the high quality of work produced. It helped us all to be clear with what was pretend and what was real.

The level of commitment and focus from group members was much higher than our project organisers anticipated and I think that is at the heart of this type of interaction. If your expectations are high in regards to what a particular group can achieve, they are usually met. I remember training to be a teacher and being given this great advice - 'before you even walk into the classroom, imagine the students will behave impeccably and you will easily teacher them what they need to learn.' This high expectation works in so many ways, as long as you add some flexibility, light-hearted humour and realism to the occasion!

Drama and puppetry skills made this all-inclusive course great fun to be part of, with the addition of creating props and choosing music for a performance to share with others. We were asked to explore the sensitive subjects of death and growing old, but even with these topics we had plenty of laughter. By creating a safe place to talk openly with respect, we could all express our feelings within set guidelines of what was appropriate within the group. We could use acting and puppetry to express these feelings while protecting the participants. I will never forget this work and hope to continue with another project similar to this in the future.

People living with dementia can enjoy puppets too.

What we didn't expect from our Times of our Lives dementia awareness project, is the joy puppets gave to people living with dementia. During our research and interaction with the older generation, we introduced puppets as a way of talking to these groups about our work and enjoying singing and interacting with us. Depending on the level of the individual, we could work in so many different ways with the puppets. Some just wanted to cuddle and stroke the hairy puppets, some wanted to use the puppet to talk, sing and dance with (I even ballroom danced with a gentleman with one of our full size monsters between us!) and some wanted to appreciate our puppetry skills and relate them to their own childhood experiences of  famous entertainers or their own toys.We have even left puppets with some groups and many have been bought from us for people living with dementia to enjoy. The biggest success in this way has been with the dog puppets. They have soothed and entertained in their usual delightful way. I really think we are on to something here and plan to create more puppets for this purpose in the future.

Dementia awareness through puppetry.

Dementia awareness gives us all an understanding of such a sensitive subject and this is especially important for young people. We have a workshop where we use group work, an interactive quiz, puppetry, role play, brain activities and lots of fun to take the fear out of dementia. We finish this session with a thought provoking drama and ask the group to help us to make special memories for this character. Puppetry is used in a sensitive and age appropriate manner. We have found that the sessions are also helpful for teachers and support staff who become involved in this work. Not only is it a spring board to start discussions of a sensitive nature in class, but it is also a space to look at personal feelings. So many of us fear the unknown and discovering facts through play resonates with all ages. When the pressure is off to be thinking about our own situations, we can reflect our feelings and worries onto fictitious characters and release emotions in a safe way. It doesn't fix all concerns but it is a good starting point.

These puppet eyes are easy to pick up and great fun to decorate.