HC-One’s Colton Lodges Care Home in Leeds is celebrating a heartwarming new partnership with The Together Project after being nominated to host a full year of Songs & Smiles sessions.
00:00Songs and Smiles is run by the Together Project, and we're the national charity that unite communities through joyful intergenerational activities.
00:08We come together with care home residents in the lounge and just have a really, really nice time together.
00:13We sing, we move, we play games, we have a cuppa or a milk and a ketchup, and just really get to know each other and build relationships.
00:21Songs unite everybody. Before children can speak, they learn to sing, and before they can walk, they learn to dance.
00:27And I think a lot of people forget that adults still have that inner child.
00:33Also, it's quite easy for people to see residents maybe who are living with dementia or disabilities, and they can't maybe move as much, and people can overlook.
00:44So bringing this kind of session means that that intergenerational gap is bridged.
00:49Everybody can have a fun time singing some well-known nursery rhymes, but we also incorporate older songs that take the residents back to their youth as well.
00:58We've got a partnership with Haribo, and they nominated care homes that meant something to them, and this care home meant something to Liam at Haribo because his grandmother lives in this care home.
01:07We've got a huge waiting list of parents wanting to come to the session, so much so that we're planning on setting up another six sessions across Leeds.
01:14The best thing about it is the chats from the residents about what has happened on that morning of the project.
01:24They speak about it for days after, and some of them will tell you it's a highlight of the week.
01:31Children in the bridge, I mean, we all are like, it's great.
01:34Let's have one of them together.
01:37We have a couple of songs, sort of do introductions, bubbles, little objects and things like that, and then we have a little chat with the residents after and sort of mingle.
01:47Lovely, yes, it's lovely. It's very nice indeed.
01:51What I really enjoy is the 50s, 60s music when that starts, that's really enjoyable.
01:56And nursery rhymes for you as well, so it's really good. We really love coming.
02:01It just makes me so happy. It's the favourite bit of the week, seeing the residents and how happy they are as well, when the kids interact with them and everything is just so cute.
02:12Bringing people of different age groups together reduces loneliness.
02:15I know since COVID, there's less and less people visit care homes.
02:18And then the children that used to come into care homes with school, that seems to be reduced recently.
02:23It's quite easy to dismiss people as they age and think that they don't need anything.
02:32But I feel that music and feel-good endorphins will help everybody feel connected.
02:40I would genuinely build real relationships, and some of our relationships are between people who are 100 years apart in age.
02:47When you get the toddlers walking over, and they don't have any, you know, there's no inhibition, so they'll walk over, they'll touch, they're inquisitive, and yeah, it's just absolutely magical.
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