Mariana’s Song at The Laurels Care Home

A moment to take in Mariana’s Song as it plays on the screen behind the arrangement of stimulus in front of the resident and facilitator

It’s been just over a month since we took over an underused multisensory room and installed Mariana’s Song within a care home for a week of 1-1 workshops with residents. So, we’ve been taking some time to reflect and look back on the experience.

Over the week that Mariana’s Song was installed, we welcomed in 25 residents who activities staff identified as being least engaged in care home activities due to dementia and other needs. It has been our main ambition to create something new that caters for residents who do not access group activities for several years, having noticed a gap in provisions before we set up Woven Nest. After 2+ years of prototyping and researching, we were overjoyed to finally present Mariana’s Song to residents at The Laurels Care Home.

A resident engaging with the rock and moss stimulus

 The purpose of Mariana’s Song is to make multisensory work accessible, age appropriate and participant led. Recently, we’ve been working with CDC (Centre for Design Citizens at Northumbria and Newcastle Uni) on a clever design that enables older people ownership over their own engagement in the activity.

Here’s how:

1.     The order of the engagement was decided by the residents’ decisions to engage with carefully designed objects

In the latest version of Mariana’s Song, the care home resident and facilitator sit in front of a screen and 6 objects of interest which correlate to the 6 chapters of the film. If the resident engages with an object, the film drifts gently to the correlating scene. The facilitators role is to be aware of where the resident’s interest is and to support their engagement throughout.

2.     The length of the engagement is determined by the resident 

Mariana’s song started life as a film that was 13 minutes long from start to finish. In the latest version, each of the 6 chapters could be enjoyed for a limitless amount of time. Residents had autonomy over the length of their own engagement, some people took part for 10 minutes, some people stayed for an hour. Some explored every chapter in the film, some explored a few.

3.     Every engagement was different

Some residents were singing, others found calm in the space and were fast asleep by the end. Some people couldn’t take their eyes off the film, others barely noticed it. All of these responses were welcomed! Facilitating Mariana’s Song is completely different to group facilitation. The facilitator supports the resident’s engagement by picking up verbal and non-verbal cues, the role of the facilitator is not to lead but to allow space.

A moment of connection as we recreated the cool sensation of going into cold water using a cooling gel

Looking back on the experience of taking Mariana’s Song out to residents, feels like looking back on a fond memory of a holiday. From the way that the space felt serene and inviting, to the unique moments of recognition and the discoveries made with each new resident we worked with.

A Woven Nest and Henry Collingham invention. Behold… the dripper. Which allows us to recreate a scene where cool water is dripping from a rock

The staff that joined us on the journey were able to give us context about each resident and how/ if they usually engage with activities. Some people left in visibly different moods from when they came in and some didn’t want to leave. Over the week, the care home staff we’re amazed by some of the resident’s reactions, and really helped us to understand the impact that Mariana’s Song was having on the residents.

 It was interesting chatting to activities staff at The Laurels about the challenges of taking people out of the care home, particularly the residents who we were working with across the week. They said that by entering the sensory room for the Mariana’s Song experience, it felt as though residents had been out of the care home. Mariana’s Song recreates the feeling of connecting with nature, and with each chapter in the story, the lights, sound, stimulus and atmosphere were able to transcended us to somewhere different for a while.

A resident engaging with the smoky fire stimulus as we watch and listen to the fire in the film.

Overall, it was a beautiful, unique experience and now that we know it works, we want to share Mariana’s Song to as many people as we can!

Many thanks to,

Linda and Lorraine at The Laurels Care Home, for being an absolute joy to work with. We couldn’t have asked for a more supportive team and can’t wait to work with you again.

Henry Collingham from CDC, for being completely magical, full of clever ideas and having the best ‘let’s just do it and see’ attitude. We’re so grateful that you get us.

Kay Hepplewhite, for all of ongoing support, mentoring and endless cups of coffee. We love having you on our team.

Sunderland Culture and the Social Enterprise Support Fund, for funding the workshops.