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I have worked in social care for my entire career, I am also a keen potter, in fact my DNA has shown me that despite my hopes to the contrary of some fascinating genetic past I am 80% Potteries born and bred. It also turns out that I can turn my hand to multitude of other crafts in pursuit of social connection, joy and reduced isolation for people affected by dementia.

I have been managing the empowerment programme at Trent Dementia for five years, in the same way that Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of diagnoses our empowerment programme wears many hats. As a small team we are consistently supported by trustees to take our lead from people living with a diagnosis and anyone affected by this experience. If people tell us they would enjoy fish and chips by the sea, we work to find a grant to make this happen. If people ask for one-to-one support, we work to find this or provide this ourselves. If people need socks, hats, and gloves, we find a way to provide them. This solid foundation allowed us a level of flexibility during the early pandemic that was not available to all services.

This week marks three years of weekly online craft sessions as part of the Trent Dementia empowerment programme. We have sent out around six hundred parcels each year, over fifteen hundred packs, posted with items suited to people's specific abilities and interests. In the first year of the pandemic, we embraced members nationally, from as far as Kent and Scotland who had been left wanting support when local services had to pivot to cope with Covid-19.

Five years ago, interviewing people with a dementia diagnosis and family caregivers, I was told plainly that people were not interested in craft. One person said they did not want to stick and paste or make a scrapbook. However, when the first lockdown was imposed and we moved support online, I was inspired by the hobbies of some group members, avid quilters, and card makers. I muted the idea of an activity session on zoom, alongside our coffee, chat, and games groups.

Our meticulous approach to relationship building, regular communication and more listening than talking meant that we understood the different situations people were living with. We were also able to source equipment and software like zoom quickly. Three groups were up and running in the second week of lockdown with between twelve and twenty people attending each one. People embraced learning about zoom and every week we worked to help them to get online again, over the phone, on laptops, tablets, and ancient computers.

Initially I suspect people were interested in a further meeting each week because of the shock and isolation they were experiencing. However, this session soon proved extremely popular. We started with a grant of £450 and since it was springtime, we sent out bedding plants and seeds to people all over Nottingham and included colouring books, pens, paints, and jigsaws for everyone.

My colleague Ghazal and I then started the process of learning about the plethora of craft packs available online, we were introduced to diamond art – the methodical process of sticking small ‘diamonds’ onto a glued sheet to create a picture. One of our most popular packs involves silk paintings, a relaxing straightforward process for producing beautiful pictures. We have learnt how to sew cards, knit, weave, and make flowers from newspapers. We have made clay houses, painted wooden puzzles, and even baked cakes together, at a distance on zoom.

I am humbled by the joy I have experienced while facilitating these groups. They are a vehicle for conversation, a way to be together and feel safe at home. We have celebrated birthdays and supported people in grief, especially in the first few months when people were unable to leave their respite care and their loved ones were unable to visit. They are attended by both men and women, and as the world re-opened for travel, we have been joined by people holidaying in Cyprus, Turkey, and Jamaica. Even on holiday, people do not want to miss a session! People have attended through their own covid, through chemotherapy and in recovery from surgery. Even as we gradually introduce face to face sessions people still turn up week after week on zoom with their projects, sometimes its chatty and sometimes it is a comfortable silence for one or two hours when at the end everyone displays their progress to a supportive audience.

People seem to have felt safer to express themselves creatively from the safety of home, differing skills and abilities mean the pace of our activities must be flexible. We address this by having regular unfinished objects, affectionately called UFO sessions where we work together on random projects.

Accidentally becoming a craft instructor with Trent Dementia has been a gift and a reminder of the simplicity of building social networks wherever you are. Group members have made gifts for family and friends, started projects teaching their grandchildren, returned to hobbies they thought lost and found new unexpected joys in creativity. In the landscape of so much loss this really feels like a gain.