FREE ONE-DAY CONFERENCE TO SHOWCASE BEST PRACTICE IN ENGAGING ISOLATED OVER 60s
Date:
10/05/2010
FREE ONE-DAY CONFERENCE TO SHOWCASE BEST PRACTICE IN ENGAGING ISOLATED OVER 60s
The organisers of a major project designed to engage the isolated over 60s in informal learning are holding a free one-day conference in which they hope to pass on their knowledge and experience to others working in the housing, care and heritage sectors.
The Group for Education in Museum (GEM) recently completed Sounding Out Your Heritage in which six groups of over 60s from across Kent were encouraged to come together and explore their personal, local, national and cultural heritage.
The aim was to reach those in care homes and sheltered housing and to improve older people’s health, confidence and quality of life through the creation of learning-based projects held in social and inclusive environments.
The groups all met over a series of sessions and, working with museum and heritage professionals, produced a range of resources based on their experiences, including an audio CD, photo story book, memory box, recipe book and sensory quilt – all inspired by a lifetime of recollection and shared memories.
Later this month, GEM will hold a one-day conference at Kent’s Chatham Maritime at which it will launch a best practice tool kit, a training programme and other resources designed to inspire, encourage and support others to run similar projects.
“The over 60s are often left behind when it comes to opportunities for informal learning,” says GEM director Dr John Stevenson.
“Coupled with this, many initiatives designed to engage this group – especially those in residential care or sheltered housing – are invariably offered in one-off scenarios and with little thought given to the long-term impact on participants.
“What we have learned through the success of Sounding Out Your Heritage is the enormous benefit and difference a project like this can make to the lives of an audience who are invariably hard to reach and often isolated.
“To see people from their early 60s to their late 90s become engaged and inspired by these opportunities and, crucially, to pass on all those years of knowledge, experience and wisdom has been truly inspiring. We now want to pass on our experience and knowledge of working with them through this free one-day conference at Chatham Maritime on May 25.”
The Sounding Out Your Heritage Best Practice Conference will be held at Chatham Maritime on Tuesday May 25. It is free to attend by anyone interested in improving older people’s health, confidence and quality of life through heritage learning. Bookings can be made online at www.gem.org.uk, by email at office@gem.org.uk or by calling 01634 853424.
May 10, 2010
Issued on behalf of the Group for Education in Museums (GEM) by David Leck Associates. Press enquiries to David Leck on 01322 528580/07710 326256.
NOTES TO EDITORS 1. The Group for Education in Museums (GEM) believes that our heritage provides distinctive opportunities for learning for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. Places such as museums and historic houses help individuals explore and make sense of the world, generate curiosity, inspire self-confidence and give visitors a sense of achievement. Heritage organisations and the learning opportunities they provide can contribute to and enhance the welfare of the individual and society. 2. Sounding Out Your Heritage is one of over 200 projects awarded funding as part of the Transformation Fund’s “learning for pleasure” innovation spearheaded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Through Transformation Fund grants, partnerships of public, private and third sector organisations in England are creating projects to: · Encourage more and different people into informal learning, particularly people from disadvantaged groups; · Open up access to learning in new places, in new ways and at more flexible times; · Support people to set up self-organised groups and learning clubs; · Widen choice by developing and sharing innovative content; · Build partnerships and strengthen the capacity of informal adult learning organisations; · Improve connections and progression between different kinds of learning; · Make better use of broadcasting and technology to stimulate and support learning. The Transformation Fund adds to the £210 million that the Government has already ring-fenced to support informal adult learning. The Government also invests £360 million each year in museums. and galleries, £10 million in UK online centres, libraries and other community venues and £21.5 million in union learning.
