Save our Intergenerational work in the community

Hello, thankyou so much for taking the time to visit our donations page. We need your help!

Firstly, I’m Vicky the Intergenerational Project Manager for Be Well Glossop, Be Well is a local, Glossop, non-profit, community interest company providing low/no cost sessions for Gentle exercise and Intergenerational work all over Glossop, Hadfield and the surrounding areas.

What will the money do?

A question we have been asked regularly is why do we need to raise money for this? And I hope this will shed the light on it. The project we previously had funding for was sadly hit by covid meaning we had to fit a 3 year project into 1 year meaning the relationships between the nurseries and homes isn't as strong as they could be. At the request of the homes and nurseries we have been asked to continue running and managing the projects as we have alot more access to help with things and also more access to the residents to get them involved, remind them of sessions. Our aim is that in 12 months (if we get funded) the sessions will be self-sustainable and run without our interaction going forward. We also will be able to set up a further 3 schools and care homes. There is a lot of paperwork and insurance matters, safety checks of residents and of course background checks to ensure the safety of the children, if people just visited from outside without our interaction then it could be deemed as unsafe due to not knowing the backgrounds. Of course when we work in dementia homes we have to ensure we work closely with the staff to ensure everyone is kept and monitor residents to ensure they are happy. There is so much more to this work than us just being part of the day, weeks of planning, purchasing equipment and supplies for crafts, trips and all sorts of other things.

So what does Intergenerational mean?

Intergenerational means bringing the generations together. We have worked with all age groups of children from Early Years nursery right up to Secondary School mixing groups of children with older people from the local community, inside care homes, residential homes, independent living, building allotments and even on Canal boats. This work has proven to physically and mentally improve the wellbeing of both generations and everyone who’s involved in the projects, whilst tackling social isolation, loneliness and i have even had parents tell me it’s improved their children's speech and helped with tackling shyness and broke down the barrier of “fear” around older people.

Hadfield Nursery School:

We have worked closely with Hadfield Nursery School Since March 2022 when we created their pairing with Willowbank in Hadfield, we have ran a monthly project with the children and residents every month since and we have seen some of the most amazing friendships built between the children and residents, nearly ALL the residents come to see the children and always get involved with whatever we do! Parents have expressed how beneficial they feel the sessions are for their children and we have different parents join us each visit. The residents’s faces speak for themselves. They adore the children visiting and are always so grateful for getting these opportunities to spend time with them.

Southview Day Nursery:

We have had the Honour of working with Southview since 2018, we have quite honestly done a bit of everything, canal boat trips, gardening, building allotments, singing, Christmas dancing - just to name a few!

Be Well have funded Southview to come to Whitfield House monthly and we have done so much together with various groups of children over the years with so many positive (in fact no negative) response, every parent, child and resident LOVE the sessions and they love them so much that SouthView visit every week and run their usual Morning nursery session in the residents lounge for all to enjoy.

With huge support from Tesco Glossop donating crafts and various other items such as Easter eggs/Christmas Gifts and Flowers we ensure that our sessions are always so much fun. June a 93 year old resident at Whitfield House has come to every session, every week since 2018 and has created such a bond with the children she is known as Nana June and reads to all the children weekly. She said “The children coming makes our day, our week even, they bring such joy to the building and we would be so sad to not have that contact”

Little Stars Nursery

Since March 2022 Little Stars have visited Regency Hall every month as we have with the other nurseries, Regency is mainly dementia residents, but this didn’t stop the residents making wonderful friendships with the children. They always remembered when they were visiting and were so hands on when it came to joining in, we did projects such as Chicken Handling, Sunflower Planting and Easter egg hunts. But what the residents loved most was singing, every nursery rhyme you can imagine the residents would sing every word with the children. We met so many children on a rotating rota from Little Stars and even had The Manager Amy’s Nana in there until recently when she sadly passed away, but she loved Amy coming to see her and bringing her children from the nursery, even more generations together.

Cornmill House

Over the years since 2016 we have worked with Cornmill and the lovely residents, they have met hundreds of children from Gamesley Nursery and been on 20 odd canal boat trips over the years teaching our younger generation all about the water ways.

Due to COVID we lost the physical relationship with the nursery but continued to write to the children and the children back to them with writing packs we provided. Once the restrictions lifted Cornmill got a PLAYGROUP and it has been such an incredible success. The pictures below speak for themselves, the group used to run monthly but due to such popularity it now runs every week and is always full! This is one of 3 playgroups that run weekly with our other two being in care settings also at Pennine Care and Whitfield House - anyone can attend these sessions and they are so full of love and joy!

Chapel Lodge:

Our newbie! This partnership is only in its second week and is already proving so beneficial, the children are on a 6 week group rotation and visit twice a month, so far we have read all about dementia, created name badges for all the residents and children and shared songs and biscuits together!

The residents light up when the children come in and truly enjoy the hour they share together, reminiscing over things from their past one lady who lives there told the children all about how she swam the Channel! They were really impressed.

We need your help to continue this amazing work, every single pound helps us to continue this work and is so appreciated not just by us, but by every single person involved. From my heart, I see first hand the positive impact these sessions have on the residents, children, staff, parents and even myself! You cannot help but smile being involved in this work, and we hope long may it continue. We have another pairing we are desperate to make happen with Duke Of Norfolk school this year tackling more social isolation and more loneliness and bringing smiles to the faces of our community.

All funds raised will be used to continue this amazing work, planning sessions, activating them, supporting the homes/nurseries and buying equipment for AT LEAST a year.

PLEASE SUPPORT US AND SHARE :)

Thanks for reading,

Vicky Murphy