The front cover of this book, which explores "The Importance of the Person and the Environment for Wellbeing" features a beautiful tranquil photo of a pink poppy. It was during 'Shibs" entertaining presentation to launch the book that he triggered more flowery memories for myself.
Whilst exploring the concept of wellbeing (or is that well-being?) Shibley touched on the work of Professor Tom Kitwood around the concept of personhood. This instantly transported me back to the days of starting out in my first post as a wet behind the ears 'primary nurse' on a CUE unit for people living with dementia in Leeds.
Due to a senior member of staff being unwell and myself still being on induction, and therefore not 'counted in the numbers' I was offered the chance to go to Bradford University to undertake training in Dementia Care Mapping. I dropped doubly lucky as the training was co-facilitated by Tom, who brought the whole concept expertly to life with some fine role play to underpin the theories we needed to grasp.
A year earlier Prof Kitwood had been invited to open a snoozelen room on a ward at High Royds Hosptial where my wife was deputy charge nurse. A couple of years later we actually had a very brief spell of both working on the ward (never on the same shift thankfully!) which based its whole philosophy of care on life histories and used music as a means of connecting.
This is where the black daisies come in, as the ward was featured in an award winning documentary, which I was only reminded of earlier this week. Black Daisies for the Bride was filmed on Whernside Ward at High Royds Hospital. It followed the stories of five female patients, all of whom had a diagnosis of dementia.
I was delighted to find the film is actually on the web, it was an unusual take on Alzheimer's but none the less led to many discussions at a time when dementia was not in the media spotlight as it is now.
