SWAMPSCOTT — The works of art that were on display at the Senior Center’s front corridor on Thursday have a very unique backstory. The pieces are the result of a weeks-long collaboration between some of the town’s students and seniors.
Originally developed at Miami University in Ohio, Opening Minds Through Art is an evidence-based, intergenerational art-making program for people living with dementia. 12 Swampscott High School students were trained by Granger St. Studios founder and Certified Dementia Practitioner Siobhan McDonald as part of health teacher Hadley Woodfin’s curriculum.
“I just saw a whole new side of my students,” Woodfin said.
Junior Nakeylen Davis is one of the students who has gotten a lot of satisfaction from the program. He described how he learned to have patience with the seniors during the process of creating art.
“If you just give everything to them, it’s not really going to help them,” Davis said. “They don’t have choices. And this is a very important program to give them a choice, and the artwork really helped them.”
McDonald credited the Senior Center’s director of aging services, Heidi Whear, and Outreach Social Worker Sabrina Clopton as additional driving forces behind bringing the program to Swampscott for the first time last fall. Whear secured an $8,000 grant from Greater Lynn Senior Services to fund aspects such as the dementia training and the provision of art supplies. Clopton was responsible for connecting Woodfin and her students with McDonald.
Clopton emphasized that the time spent by participating seniors is also beneficial to their caregivers, such as George Chaisson, who looks after his wife, Ellen.
“She’s really showing something I never knew she had,” Chaisson said about his wife’s artwork.
The program appears to be set up for the long term. Woodfin spearheaded a proposal approved by the School Committee to make the program an elective course called Bridging Generations.
“This elective allows us to have as much time as we need to prepare these kids,” Woodfin said. “And if we wanted to do more art, we could do more art.”
Clopton is looking forward to the third rendition of the program this summer, in which students will be fully volunteering their time during vacation to participate.
“It demystifies and destigmatizes a very lonely illness,” Clopton said. “It emphasizes skills that are retained, not skills that are lost.”
According to Clopton, Swampscott is the only municipality in the Commonwealth that has a community-based implementation of Opening Minds Through Art.
