MercyCare’s Thornlie Early Learning Centre brightens the day of elderly residents

Children from Perth based MercyCare Thornlie Early Learning Centre recently brightened the day of residents at MercyCare Maddington Residential Aged Care Home with a special surprise when they were hand-delivered an array of colourful artworks.

 

Educator Sarah Kneale was behind the initiative, which has been in place with Maddington’s lifestyle therapy team since 2017 to build an intergenerational connection between the residents and children at her centre.

 

The artworks have been a way to manage the ongoing and ever changing restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

“We haven’t been able to arrange any face to face visits due to COVID restrictions for the past two years, so I wanted to find a way for children to connect with residents,” she explained.

 

After hearing that the song ‘You Are My Sunshine’ is a favourite among Maddington residents, Sarah came up with the idea to create a series of artworks that pay homage to the joyful tune.

 

“We’ve created little sunshine props and hats for the residents to wear,” Sarah explained.

 

“The idea is that, sometime soon, we will come together over video chat to sing the song together and the residents can wear their sunshine hats and have their props ready.

 

Sarah engaged children of all ages across the centre to create an array of artworks.

 

Babies painted beaded necklaces while toddlers helped decorate the sunshine hats and props pre-schoolers created textured cards and drawings for residents to display in their rooms.

 

“The residents lit up when Sarah came to deliver the artworks,” Maddington’s Lifestyle Therapy and Spirituality Coordinator Annemarie Kluvers said.

 

“It’s really special to see the effort that Sarah and the children at Thornlie have put into creating art for our residents, and we will be looking to deepen this connection in the coming months.”

 

As a show of gratitude for delivering the colourful artwork, Annemarie presented Sarah and the Thornlie team with a hamper of fruit and handwritten message from the Maddington team.