Founder - About Caroline Backhouse (nee Twist)
Caroline believes that we need to use creative approaches to support people on their dementia journey and that it is possible to live well with dementia.
Experience
Having over eighteen years experience of running reminiscence sessions, activities and training in care homes across the UK she has supported and run collaborative projects with Sheffield University, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Museums, YAS, The Montgomery Theatre, Sheffield Cathedral, Twinkl, Stories for the Soul, Playlist for Life and Sheffield City Council.
Art
Caroline believes art is a powerful tool to convey ideas where words fail and over the years has had several exhibitions promoting creative approaches to dementia care, exploring the relationship society has to a person living with dementia as well as creating work with people on that journey.
Listen and Understand Me - Reminiscences in Copper and Brass at the 2012 Dementia Creative Arts Exhibition, Sheffield
Dementia Cushions - Reminiscences Recorded onto Fabric at the 2013 St Marys Told in South Yorkshire Event
Beauty in the Little Things - Community Arts at the June 2015 at Exhibition at Eten Cafe, Sheffield
Dementia Necklaces - Photographs and Sculptures at the 2015 Well Made Exhibition, White Cloth Gallery, Leeds
Winston Churchill Fellowship
In 2015 she was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship and travelled for two months across Europe and South America researching artist's engagement with life story work in care home settings. This was a fantastic process of interviewing artists and running projects which filled her with the knowledge and enthusiasm to come back and start a new project.
Handling Collections
Following her Fellowship Caroline set on a mission to bring creative life storying materials to the forefront of dementia care in Sheffield. The Creative Reminiscence Collection was born and Caroline began to compile handling collections that were Sheffield centric, doing a call out to the people of Sheffield and Sheffield Heritage Museum to donate items to make up themed boxes. With the support and donations from people she was able to create a very special resource without funding.
In January 2017 the first Sheffield Creative Reminiscence Collection was housed at The Montgomery Theatre (now gifted to Sheffcare for daily use in their 10 care homes following the COVID pandemic) and in July 2017 the second was housed at St Peter’s Resource Centre in Rotherham. The collections were made free to borrow removing barriers to activities coordinators, families and dementia cafes.
Award
In November 2018 Caroline was awarded the UK Dementia Champion award at the Journal of Dementia Care Awards in Brighton. A great honour which she attributes to the opportunity she had been given to partner with so many talented people. This award gave her the confidence to step out into new projects and she worked with the Church of England to develop Stories for the Soul linking with Playlist for Life and then working for them as a trainer and a local organiser, both in Sheffield and Coventry, sharing the lifeline that a personalised playlist of music can have for a person living with dementia.
The Future
Caroline is developing a dynamic training programme which will share all her learnings, travel findings and creativity to support and inspire those living and working with people living with dementia. She is also working on a book, The A-Z of Storytelling Artforms and continuing her creative work running The Curious Creatives Club Sketchbook Project in Tile Hill, Coventry.
