Intergenerational process drama: Practitioner reflection on creative adventures in an acute hospital context

ABSTRACT

This reflection will offer insights into the methodology of process drama as a tool for intergenerational connection, co-intentional pedagogy, and playfulness for children collaborating with older adult patients living with dementia. Providing insights into the adaption of conventional models of process drama drawing on the work of Cecily O’Neill, this reflection considers the key lessons learnt from two years of Intergen, a project funded by Imperial Health Charity. Though the project itself incorporated multiple art forms, this piece will focus on intergenerational process drama to share insights into the way the practice evolved to engage both older adult patients and children in acute hospital contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ National Health Service (NHS).

² Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

³ Drama based training for primary school children in dementia awareness and communication for this intergenerational project took place before children attended workshops in the wards with patients. The training was co-created by Dr Nicola Abraham and the Dementia Care Team at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to offer interactive empathy-based activities that drew upon improvisation, role play and team work activities to enable children to understand dementia, and develop communication strategies to use to support their interactions with patients.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Imperial Health Charity [GG2920_01].