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For this Creative skills assignment I will write a personal journey where I will talk about my own creative development and my growing awareness of how creativity could be used within social care practice. In this reflection I will talk about how the awareness of how my own characteristics, values and practice on interactions how this effects how I might interact with service users, I will show how I can reflect critically on this to be able to improve on my practice. For this assignment I will also pick a video that has my interest, I will give a reflection that shows how I feel and what I thought when I engaged with this video.

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Creative Skills-A Personal Journey-Journal 1

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Creative Skills-A Personal Journey-Journal 1

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When I am being creative it allows me to be able to try something new I never have before, I can follow the passions that I have and it helps me to be able to learn things about myself I never knew before, being creative makes me happy, I feel like I use my imagination a lot more when I am being creative and I can express how I feel through creativity. I feel like my creativity has developed a lot, due to college and working I don’t really have the time to be creative, I find myself feeling stressed as I have no time to relax so I’ve tried to be more creative in different ways such as painting, drawing, I feel like this helps me to feel calm as I am putting my feeling and stress out on a page rather than letting it out in different ways. Whilst being a part of my creative skills module I have become more aware of how creativity can be used withing social care practice. Helping the service users to be more creative can help them with their self-esteem, can help them to feel like they have a sense of purpose, it can help them to develop skills such as social, communication, teamwork, it can help a service user to improve on their quality of life.

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Creative Skills-A Personal Journey-Journal 1

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Creative Skills-A Personal Journey-Journal 1

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There is many ways you can help service users who for example may not be able to say how they feel, sensory play is a good way for this service users to be able to express how they feel, it can help them to express themselves, I have provided a photo as an example of sensory play, the service can pick what they want to put into their bag, they can feel the different materials. I think that elderly people with early onset dementia would engage with creative practices as it could help them to feel some sort of independence again, it may bring back memories for them from the past. I see my own creativity more now than in the past, I see how I can bring this to practice. I currently work in a nursing home so for example I feel I can bring creativity to my practice by doing activities with the service user such as painting a picture from a memory from their past, cooking or baking that can also help them with their motor skills as they will be using movement. As of right now I do not think that there is anything out of my comfort zone, I am willing to try and explore new things, I feel like this would be very good, beneficial for me. I feel I can help empower the service users using the types of creativity I have explored this semester as I can help me to help the clients be more confident in themselves.

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 1

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 1

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This is an example of sensory play for service users

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For my creative skills class a creative activity that I engaged in was showing that its ok to not be ok and to be ok, this made me feel happy and relieved as sometimes I feel for myself it isn’t ok to not be fine, I have always been the kind of person to put others, their feelings before my own, so this class helped me to become more aware about this. My own values that I feel will help me when I interact with service users in social care practice choice, independence and confidentiality and privacy of information, I feel I can critically improve on this by doing different activities in my creative skills practice that can help a service user to feel important, like they can be more independent again. In practice the service users will be given the choice of whether they would like to do the activity, which activity they would like to do, what materials they would like to use to be able to do this activity, this will also give them back their independence that they might seek. The social care group the I feel would engage with this creative skills activity is teenagers in residential homes, I feel like this group would engage as teenagers sometimes feel like they can’t open up to anyone, they keep things to themselves, they feel like it’s wrong to not be ok. I think that this activity would be good as it can help them to realise that these feeling that they are having are ok, that they are normal, hopefully it will help this group to be able to open up, talk about their thoughts and feelings. I feel like this would be in my comfort zone, I have never worked with teenagers before but I would like this experience and feel it would be very beneficial to me.

Also in my creative skills class everyone shared 3 things that are very special to them, this class made me sad as the thngs I showed were hard for me but I feel it calmed my emotions a little, this could be a good activity to do with service users as it is a way for them to open up, talk about their feelings. I have added photos of the three things that i picked for this creative skills class.

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 2

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 2

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This is a creative skills activity that can be used with teenagers in residential homes.

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This hamster is special to me as I got him on the 2 years of my close friend passing away, I named him after my friends, so this little guy means a lot to me.

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These books are special to me as when I was 4 years old my nanny gave me these books just before she passed away and I have had them ever since, I have tried to keep them safe.

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Photo of a necklace that someone close to me got for me, this necklace is special to me

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Photo of a necklace that someone close to me got for me, this necklace is special to me

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This necklace is special to me as it shows the date that my close friend committed suicide, this was something hard for me to deal with so this is why it is very meaningful to me.

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 3

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Creative Skills Creative Piece-Journal 3

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In my creative skills class I participated in an activity where I had to make something that flies out of lego, I made a plane. I have added a photo of this plane to my padlet. I really enjoyed this creative activity as I had to really use my head, my imagination to be able to create this object. The characteristics that I feel can help me to improve on my practice are active listening, communication, critical thinking, patience. Active listening will help me in practice as I will need to listen to what the service users are communicating with me in order to be able to reflect back on this conversation. Communication will help me to be able to engage with the service users but also with other professionals I may come across whilst I am in my practice. Patience will help me to give the service users the time they need to do these activities, to open up, to communicate with me. The service user group I feel would engage with this activity is elderly will early onset dementia as it will help them to use their imagination, it will also help with their motor skills as they are using their hands to build these lego objects. I personally feel like this would be in my comfort zone as I have had a lot of experience working with elderly people who have dementia so I feel like this activity would be very beneficial to them, as people get older they aren’t moving around or exercising as much, this is why I feel this activity will help them with their motor skills.

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies- Question 1

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies- Question 1

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For part 2 of my assignment I found a video of Arts in social care and art in health care settings. I picked this video as I had a big interest in it as I currently work with elderly people with dementia. The video that I chose is “The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions present Charlie McGettigan-Past Times Community Choir”, in this video Charlie McGettigan did a Rhinestone Cowboy Session with the Past Time Community Choir, this is a choir that supports people who are living with dementia, their families, their friends and their communities. My personal response to this video that I had is that I found it very nice and good to see the people with dementia, their families coming together to sing, this will create an amazing memory for the elderly, also for their family.

This session allowed everyone to be included, singing can also help people with dementia to have a small boost in their memory, their thinking skills, singing can also help them to express how they feel, the ideas they may have in a verbal or non-verbal way, this makes me happy as people with dementia may not be able to create memories with their families, they may no longer be able to express how they feel, however through just one simple song this can change everything and to me that is something that is truly beautiful. For practice tis video made me realise that with the people I may work with in social care, this activity could have a major impact on them, it can help families to bring back the connection they may have lost with their loved ones due to their illness, in practice this is something I would love to do, to also help them build on their skills.

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies-Question 2

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies-Question 2

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This video is demonstrating how it is important to practice in a non-discriminating way as the video shows that no matter how old a person is or no matter what illness they have everyone is able to express themselves in the same way. This choir also shows even if a person has dementia there are ways to help them to remember words and singing is one of those ways. In this video it shows non-discriminatory action as the elderly with dementia are singing along to the song with their families, the dementia patients are not being excluded, they are all being included in this activity.

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Piece of work that I did that captures my response to the creativity I witnessed in this video project

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Piece of work that I did that captures my response to the creativity I witnessed in this video project

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies-Question 3

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Creative Reflections on Arts in Social Care & Health Care Case studies-Question 3

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In this video it empowers the service users as it helps them to remember when they usually would not be able too, this created an amazing opportunity for them. This video meets the needs of the service users as a big thing that affects a dementia patient is not having their family there, or when their family members have to leave, I noticed this whilst on practice. This activity gave the service users the opportunity to be there with their families again, to create a beautiful and happy memories with them. Dementia  patients have emotional needs through songs they can express how they feel, the atmosphere can also create a calm environment for everybody evolved. Dementia patients also have physical needs, for example their mobility, dementia patients would not be moving around, exercising anymore, the song may get some of them moving their hands, arms, legs to the beat of the song, this would be a great help for their mobility as it’s allowing them to exercise different parts of their body. Dementia patients have social needs this can help to boost their self-esteem by talking to friends and family, it can also exercise their brains, in some cases it can help slow some of the symptoms of dementia such as their memory deteriorating.