A Sidmouth care home has launched a new initiative to bring young and older generations together to lift its resident’s mood.
Malden House invites its staff and parents to bring in their little ones to its weekly ‘tiny feet’ gatherings where children can interact with the residents for an hour.
Some of the activities the children and the adults do together includes reading, playing with toys on the mat or singing songs.
Eddie ‘Chalky’ White said it was lovely to be with the children as he himself has nine grandchildren.
Fellow resident Barbara Dixon added: “I think it’s lovely to see the children enjoying themselves. I love the children and enjoy talking to them, when your own children grown up you forget what its like to be that little.”
This week, the residents enjoyed the company of 19 month old Matthew, Abbie, 15 months, Elliott, two, George, one, and 14 month old Arthur.
Agnieszka Orlowska, registered manager at the house, “It is a great idea to involve the very young children in our residents lives on a regular basis as we can see such positive effects and uplifted moods.
“Every resident who decides to take part in our tiny feet hour experiences in a different and very individual way. For example some of our ladies will go back in time to when they had younger children and share with us how they managed,
It seems that we definitely have it much easier now. With children you can’t plan ahead so we do have some funny situations and lots of laughter. We are hoping that this will carry on and we will be able to keep providing this quality time for our residents to interact with our youngest generation.”
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