Art Therapy Supplies from the UK.

http://www.springfieldla.co.uk/

The Springfield Leisure-Art Collection is a cottage industry, formed in 1992 in response to a perceived need for dignified source material. Since then, we have consistently supplied hospitals, day care centres, private nursing homes and casual users.

All of us reminisce - preferably about the good times! Students have shown that to use the past as a bridge to the present is a valuable therapeutic aid for the elderly. Obviously, elderly people have more first-hand knowledge about past years than young people, and so feel more confident in talking about the 'old days'. This allows conversation and interaction to flow more easily between different age groups. With this in mind, The Springfield Leisure-Art Collection has produced a series of therapy books for the mature user. These are in various forms, the initial publications, first produced in the early 1990s being colouring books.

The prime mover in the production of Sweet Bird of Youth, Flashback, Yesterdays & Memories and One Step at a Time was a demand for material that could provide the user with a dignified, useful diversion. Our collection has since developed with the addition of The Extremely Large Crossword Book.

http://www.springfieldla.co.uk/

Everyone retains some souvenir of the past, particularly if it is associated with a happy time. Postcards, photographs and other items remind us all of special occasions and experiences. And yet, nostalgia is not the sole province of the elderly; even small children like to have something to remind them of a special event.

We all use diaries and scrapbooks to store precious reminders for future reference. Photographs of loved ones are carried in pockets or handbags and adorn the bedside cabinets of many hospital wards. People in hospitals or residential homes are sometimes without personal reminders of their past, their families, or their experiences and achievements; those working with such people seek to encourage their independence to preserve and enhance their personalities and identities. The use of reminiscence, comments on current affairs, comparisons with the past and their knowledge and experience, are important ways by which these aims may be attained.

Ideally, an illustrated life history would enable such discussion to be illuminated and extended. Our first ‘diary’ product was The Memory Diary, an end-user book to be completed by user/helper. Helping an elderly user to make regular use of a ‘diary’ provides useful base lines on information, inter-personal contact, understanding and relevant activities. A more comprehensive aid in completing an abridged biography is My Life Story, a photocopy-master workbook, with explanatory notes and rather more complementary aims.

The ‘Puzzles’ collection has now been expanded to introduce Figure Fit and Word Fit, both variations on crossword puzzles, and Mazes 1 and Mazes 2, an aid to exercising eye-hand coordination.

Completing the set for the 2004 catalogue is Pairs and its developed version, Spot the Difference, all of these aimed at mature users. Finally, we present Nouns and Verbs, two collections of object recognition flashcards.

website: http://www.springfieldla.co.uk/
contact: luke@vintage76.co.uk

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.