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Case study : Group project " Danger! Men at Work"

A craft and textile project designed around six men who lived in a residential home. A man who had been in institutional hospital care for many years was resettled in the home. As a way to support him in this transitional time a STAA artist and occupational therapist from Edward Street Hospital worked with the group over twenty sessions.

An observation of one session’s activities by Professor David Jolley as part of Dementia Plus West Midlands’ Evaluation of STAA in 2004:

DJ was able to sit in on a morning toward the end of this project.

It was a wonderful experience. Within the framework of a very ordinary Nursing Home routine, something special had been established. It was understood that on Friday mornings, the men would set up and set to work.

In the absence of a dedicated space (room), the dining room had been drawn into commission. Table became workbenches (hammer marks to prove it). Most of the residents of the Home are women. The men are in the minority and generally ill-at-ease with the quietude of the regime. To gain their interest in anything, particularly their positive interest was a challenge. But a few came along and eventually seven became a workforce. The artist began to explore their backgrounds and interests and thoughts on what to do. Hammers came in early. The sound of hammering was accepted as music to the ears, a music at odds with the expectations of quiet and acceptance of care and feminine values.

So we hammer and we are men at work.

Michael, Andy, Brian, Sid, Harold, Professor Morriarty and Malcolm adopt particular benches and set about their creative works. Some have continued to hammers, other paint or mould, stack, collect or whatever. All are creating something which comes from them and their past.

They talk as they work. Talk to the artist, the staff helpers who are allocated time to the project, the OT whose enthusiasm, passion and care flood generously over everyone and everything. They talk with each other and even with me (DJ). Surprising lives, surprisingly thrown together. One with a life almost wholly confined to institutions, in extraordinary contrast to another who has travelled the world and carried responsibility for many employees, brought together in common need and silence.

And the workplace has a structure and hierarchy:

• Tea break, naturally.

• A runner, more able than the rest, and finding kudos and perhaps profit in collecting monies and disappearing to fetch cigarettes, sweets and a newspaper.

• Consoling a frustration.

• Chatting up the pretty young helpers.

• Grumbling about or showing off to the visitor.

• Confiding that the food is not as good it might be.

• Wishing we had a shed or somewhere to do the work without threat of disruption.

• But here is the bell! Have to make way for lunch.

• Surely we can continue. There is much still to be done.

To hear the planning and exploration strategy from the artist and OT is poetry in itself. Each man respected, valued and loved back into being from anonymity.

The art community, or community of artists, emerges as a prophet sect of our time, seeking and rescuing individuals for themselves and each other, for all of us.

The two young helpers, care assistants within the Home, demonstrated talent, interest and wit. Both were uplifted and excited by the experience, were being encouraged to apply their new skills and confidence at other times during the working week and had thoughts to extend their training. They were involving other members of their families in developing themselves and their ideas.

The Officer in Charge of the Home is astonished that the men have become involved at all. She knows they have looked forwards to Fridays and dreads to loss when the project ends. She hopes her helper trainees will be able to carry on. The presence of the activity has had a positive impact on the life of the Home. She has sympathy with the idea that a special place should be created/set aside for such activities.

Other residents commented favourably.

• ‘They can be very noisy, you know. I think they do it just because they can.’
• ‘They are always slow at clearing up. We have to wait for our lunch. It’s their way of letting us know they have been doing something different.’
• ‘The rest of the week, you can’t see them doing anything.’

Families of the men have commented happily on the venture. Some have come along, there was a son present at the session DJ observed. They have contributed materials, photographs, stories and been pleased to share humour and pride based on a life they have shared, which had seemed lost before its time.

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