Join us for a free online forum discussion in partnership with Creative Health facilitator Seiwa Cunningham.
Flourishing Lives, the Flourishing Lives Advisory Group (FLAG), and Seiwa Cunningham invite you to our free online forum discussing the theme of agency when working with People Living with Dementia.
Creative Health facilitator Seiwa Cunningham is in the middle stages of a project with the idea of co-creation and agency at its heart.
Seiwa will be working with People Living with Dementia, a Community Engagement and Outreach Manager, and activity providers from two different care homes (Royal Hospital Chelsea & The Kensington Care Home), to explore first the feasibility, then the reality, of an intervention weighted with the voices of all involved.
In other words, we might well be putting the phrase “Nothing about us without us” to the test. Each stage of the project will be a conversation between all stakeholders in the project.
By taking part in this open forum discussion, we invite you to be a consenting or dissenting voice, to add or take away, as we share ideas and work together to empower greater opportunities for agency and co-creation at the heart of Creative Dementia interventions.
People Living with Dementia, professional or family carers, arts and wellbeing practitoners, activity providers, commissioners, funders, freelancers; join the forum and let’s talk!
About Seiwa Cunningham:
Seiwa Cunningham | LinkedIn
Seiwa Cunningham (@redalloverart) Instagram photos and videos
Artist
Carer & Dementia Advocate
Creative Health Workshop Facilitator
Expert by Experience
Reminiscence and Cognitive Stimulation Therapy Practitioner
I am a textile artist and have been facilitating creative workshops since 1985. My audiences have included children, families, adults and those with both physical and learning disabilities, and I have many years of experience working in museums, galleries, hospitals and schools. Since 2004 I have taken training and continually developed my practice to concentrate on engagement with People Living with Dementia (PLWD) and their carers. Following my mother’s diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia, I became her carer, giving me eight years of lived experience. For three years during that period, I also worked as a social carer in Camden.
In 2024 I was Programme Director for Arts in Care Homes, a National Day established by NAPA, the National Activity Providers Association.
Between 2022 and 2023, I was Programme Manager for Memories of London, the London Museum’s engagement programme for PLWD and also managed the Dementia-Friendly Venues Network on behalf of the GLA. The GLA later commissioned me to create a pilot Assessment Framework for the Mayor of London’s Dementia-Friendly Venues Charter and I have submitted a report commissioned by the London Museum as part of their Flourishing Neighbourhoods Programme.
I continue to run creative workshops for PLWD in care homes and for museums and other cultural organisations and also focus on advocacy for PLWD and their family carers, curating discussions and provocations around health inequalities and creative health; using the arts as a vehicle for well-being.
Join us to share ideas, refine your working practices, and meet other progressive people who are striving to innovate and excel in services for older people.
Date:
Wednesday 23rd April 2025, 11.30am – 1pm BST