In early 2023 The Clare Milne Trust awarded a grant to the Connections programme at The Box Foundation in Plymouth. The purpose of the Connections programme was to develop a range of creative activities for people living with dementia and their carers.

Building on ten years of experience and utilising The Box’s collections and exhibitions to increase opportunities for creativity, the Connections programme aimed to improve the pathway and support cognition for people living with dementia in Plymouth. Regular workshops and activities were held at The Box, providing a space for new connection, creativity, and calmness for participant and carer together. A great bond was formed between all the participants through this approach.

Adam Milford from The Box said that the Connections programme had “achieved more than we intended through employing local artists and creative practitioners to deliver this work, including Alice Robinson-Carter who led the project and Sue Lewry, Christina Peters, Abimbola Alao, Nicole Redfern and Joe Lyward.

This resulted in high quality activities for participants to engage with.”

A carer interviewed after a session and said that “it was good to have something that we can do together, quite a lot of things are either for the person living with dementia or the carer. But a lot of us like things that we can do with each other.” Another person living with dementia said it gave him “comradeship.”

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