What is it about?
Group discussions with older women who participate in craft workshops explore the importance of these shared activities to their wellbeing. The paper explores the role of craft in their lives and how learning new, and continuing old skills helps them navigate older age, potential loneliness and experience the joy of togetherness.
Featured Image
Photo by Andrew Moca on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The paper highlights the importance of making craft activities' accessible and sociable. Togetherness develops as we chat naturally whilst our hands and minds focus on a creative project. Shared emotions are the basis for this togetherness . The paper makes practical suggestions for how such sessions can be designed for maximum wellbeing. One of the key findings is that these are successful when they run regularly, include a level of challenge without being off-putting and result in a tangible and useful object.
Perspectives
Having crafted with our participants it was clear that being together and chatting informally whilst creating something makes us feel good. The importance of sharing emotions soon emerged as the key to this. We laughed about our mistakes and worried over our creative choices but did that together. Stories never before told emerged as we felt comfortable talking and creating. The project left me convinced of the power of group craft sessions as wellbeing interventions.
Professor Emma Harriet Wood
Leeds Beckett University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Doing and feeling together in older age: self-worth and belonging through social creative activities, Ageing and Society, November 2021, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0144686x21001628.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
