Anne Wilkinson is an Occupational Therapy Assistant in our Therapies and Rehabilitation Centre, where every day presents some new artistic and creative challenge.
“A typical morning begins with us going into the In Patient Centre to take our daily word game around and checking if people want listening books or if anybody wants to do some activities or crafts,” she explains.
“Then our day patients start to arrive and our activities for the day begin, depending on what people are interested in doing, so no day is ever really the same for us.”
Those activities can range from pottery to creating water colours and memory boxes or creating a famous St Luke’s silk scarf – every one guaranteed to have a unique pattern!
“The scarves are very popular because they’re something everybody can do and they are a nice introduction to craft work,” Anne says.
“Some people are unsure of what they’ll get out of working on arts and crafts but they often discover that it gives them extra confidence and we also find that, while they’re working on something it encourages them to talk, which is always a good thing.”
Most recently Anne was part of the project to paint the ceramic daisies which formed the focal part of our Celebration of Life event.
“There were 400 daisies to paint so we had patients, relatives, volunteers, corporate volunteers and staff members doing their bit,” she laughs.
“That’s a lot of pink and yellow paint we got through but I think the end result was worth all the time and effort!”