by Rachel Furniss, Health and Wellbeing Facilitator
We love Books Beyond Words at MacIntyre and we advocate their use widely within our teams to support a range of different conversations relating to physical and mental health, emotions and more.
It made complete sense, therefore, when we decided to begin our book clubs that these books would be our key resources to share with our book club members.
What are Books Beyond Words?
If you aren’t familiar with Books Beyond Words, they are picture books that support a person with a learning disability to have full control of the story they are seeing and how it unfolds.
At MacIntyre we have used them for many different purposes and in numerous situations, often documenting our experiences to inspire others to pick up these resources and explore them.
A particularly notable way we’ve used Books Beyond Words was during our Dying to Talk Project, where we successfully ran workshops using the Books Beyond Words Grief titles. Using these books helped us to break down taboos around death and dying, and enabled us to have some wonderful and very enlightening conversations with the people who draw on our support, as well as with staff and families too.
Why we decided to begin ‘The Page Turners’ book club
Given the success we had using Books Beyond Words during the Dying to Talk Project, it was a natural next step to begin regular book clubs for the people who draw on our support to help with further learning on a range of topics.
We decided to call our clubs ‘The Page Turners’ and they’ve been running monthly in Chesterfield for just over 6 months now. On average 15-20 people attend from a mix of services and the clubs are always open to new members. We were lucky to receive a Staff Council donation to buy some Books Beyond Words titles, and this has enabled us to focus on a different topic during each session.
Being part of The Page Turners means having a place to talk about feelings and experiences that aren’t always easily understood or articulated, and being in a safe space amongst friends to have those conversations so our confidence can grow. We enjoy coming together and having time to share our thoughts (and a biscuit or two!) and we enjoy learning about new subjects as well.
Why are ‘The Page Turners’ learning about dementia?
We’ve focused on ‘Ann has Dementia’ recently because we know that many of the people we support are affected by dementia. It may be that a peer or friend is living with dementia, or someone in our member’s family is or was.
Dementia is a complex condition to explain, but by using Ann has Dementia The Page Turners have been able to own the story of Ann and reflect their own thoughts and ideas through the images they see in the book.
The conversations we’ve had about Ann has Dementia
We have experienced a range of emotions while looking at Ann has Dementia. The Page Turners enjoyed the part where Ann put the milk in the washing machine, but became concerned when Ann went out at night and had to be brought back home by the police.
We talked about our experiences with our families and one member shared:
"When my mum had dementia she forgot who I was, it was scary and I had to keep telling her, ‘I am June, your daughter.’”
Another member said:
"My mum is in a care home, she is 98 and she loves it there, they are very nice to her.”
Ann has Dementia has helped us to learn too, and thoughts have been expressed that include:
“I didn’t realise it’s not just old people who get dementia. Young people can as well."
"Dementia is about memory loss and losing the skills I have.”
"This book helped me understand people aren’t just being silly and doing funny silly things. It’s an illness and we have to help them understand, don’t just do things for them.”
Some members spoke about how they might feel if they developed dementia and shared contrasting thoughts:
“I hope I can still go swimming and play bowling if I get dementia.”
"It’s scary. I don’t want to get dementia and forget everyone.”
What’s next for The Page Turners?
The Page Turners plan to read more books that challenge our understanding and encourage us to think about and explore different subjects, including some that might feel taboo. We are finding, by sharing our time and thoughts together, that things that worry us can feel better if we talk about them.
Final thoughts
I’m personally really enjoying facilitating our book clubs, hearing the natural conversations that are happening and supporting our members to feel they can talk about things that they perhaps didn’t think they could or had ever had the chance to before.
My thanks go to the MacIntyre Staff Council whose generous donation has enabled us to run these book clubs successfully. We were able to buy 50 more books for our library and have at least two copies of each title we wanted.
We are currently looking at setting up more book clubs within MacIntyre in other locations, so if you think that this is something that your staff team would like to introduce please contact [javascript protected email address] for more information.
