Age UK Sheffield and the Happiness Programme.

We spoke with Elsie Ledger, Senior Community Project Lead at Age UK Sheffield. The service is a charity that supports anybody over the age of 50 with the aim that nobody will live in poverty or loneliness in Sheffield. The charity has a large number of services, and they use the interactive projector at their Wellbeing Centres.

Elsie tells us they run a range of activities over the 5 hours a day they’re open, and usually there is a theme to these. They  use the interactive projector alongside these themes.

“What’s fantastic is with the updates [to the Happiness Programme], we can have different session using the themes and have different activities running alongside that”

An example Elsie gave us was using the sensory activity “Leaves” alongside their Autumn theme of the week.
“What’s amazing is just seeing customers mesmerised by it and just walking up to it and having a feel, seeing how it’s interactive. Even just having it as a backdrop really enhances our sessions.”

Elsie explained how they use the projector in group environments and in 1-to-1 sessions, and they often project it onto a wall, meaning groups of up to 10 can sit around and engage with the activity.

“We really, really enjoy the quizzes, it’s kind of like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, people get a little bit competitive. They still challenge our customers because we support people with more mild to moderate dementia rather than advanced dementia and a few games might be for people who are more advanced, but there’s a good range for our group as well.”

“Socialisation is definitely improved because it means we can sit everybody around, and they’re all interacting and engaging with the same thing.”

Elsie told us a story from a time when it was snowing, and it meant service users were waiting a for 3 hours to be picked up. That week they’d had an astronomy theme at the service.

“We’d run out of ways to engage them. We tried everything. They were just anxious about getting home, so we put the projector on and we started off with the stargazing activity and they were just mesmerised. They were so taken in by how it looked, how everything moved, watching the shooting stars. And then they were very keen to have a go on all the activities.”

“It’s just a new and innovative way of engaging people when everything else fails and I always go back to that because using it on a one to one basis with people that are slightly distressed or anxious, it completely takes them out of that worry that they’re feeling and helps them to focus on something that’s in front of them, something that’s exciting and engaging and different. So, that was an absolute winner for us because we were struggling at that point to keep these customers focused and not worrying and I don’t think we could’ve done it without the Happiness Programme. Anytime somebody is distressed, we get the projector out. It nearly always works.”

Some of the favourite games at the service include:

•          Sweet Shop – because of the reminiscence it evokes and the conversations it starts
•          Air Hockey – they use it in group settings, and it can get very competitive
•          Seasonal Games – they usually match the themes run at the service

When asked about our Service support, unlimited and offered as part of the Happiness Programme subscription, Elsie said:

“I think everyone at Social-Ability has been fantastic in supporting any of our concerns or issues. Technology has always been an issue because of our internet connection but you’re all very supportive in looking at ways to work around that to make it accessible for everyone.”

“[The interactive projector] is one of those things you can just bring out when all else has failed or you haven’t had time to do your activity planning that morning. There’s a million different things you can do on the Happiness Programme, so I would definitely recommend it.”