Introduction
“Promoting well-being by valuing people’s memories”
is the mission of the Reminiscence Network Northern Ireland (RNNI), a
small membership organisation established ten years ago. From its
beginnings RNNI has attracted enthusiastic commitment from people from
many different professions, interests and service sectors. Its 100 or so
individual and corporate members come from adult education, community
arts, community development, education, health and social care, oral and
local history, libraries, museums, supported housing and youth work. It
also attracts students undertaking professional and vocational courses
and volunteers of different ages with varied life experience.
Background
Following the efforts of a small steering group
consisting of reminiscence practitioners, some of whom had also been
undertaking ad hoc training, research and writing about reminiscence
work since the early 1980s, the Northern Ireland organisation was
officially launched in June 1999. It is a charity recognised for tax
purposes (XR33961) whose Board of Management is elected annually. RNNI
provides training, consultation, advice and information concerning
reminiscence work, life review and life story work undertaken with
people of all ages and engages in practical reminiscence projects,
mostly in partnership with other organisations. RNNI maintains close
links with older people’s organisations in Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland but sees reminiscence as highly relevant to many
people rather than restricted to particular age, disability groups or
special environments.
Until recently RNNI has never employed salaried
staff. It has depended upon board members volunteering time and a small
number of paid sessional trainers and reminiscence practitioners who
were supported by ad-hoc administrative assistance as required. Over the
years it benefited considerably by close supportive links with a number
of statutory and not for profit organisations who generously offered
good will, encouragement, assistance in kind, training contracts and the
occasional small injection of funds for specific projects. Although
mostly drawing on local expertise, the Network’s training programme has
been enriched by contributions from visiting academics, practitioners
and researchers from other countries including England, Scotland,
Australia and the US.
Recent developments
In the last two to three years RNNI has embarked on
a major transformation. Commencing in May 2007 the Heritage Lottery
funded a three year project Valuing Heritage by Valuing Memories.
Initiated and managed by RNNI this involves a partnership with three
local and one national museum, the Ulster American Folk Park. Two
part-time project workers are attached to these museums, Katrina Lavery
in Craigavon and Newry, and Deirdre Doherty in Omagh and Derry. They
have established local reminiscence loan box services and are attracting
new audiences into the museums, promoting and supporting reminiscence
groups through community outreach and organising an extensive series of
training workshops. Activities designed to capture local knowledge and
enrich museums’ programmes, exhibitions and collections are being
developed. The museums are committed to becoming hubs to foster
reminiscence and life story work beyond the lifetime of the project.
They manage the loan box services and their staff who have developed
reminiscence skills by participating in the project’s training and
development programme will support continuing opportunities for local
networking so that reminiscence work is sustained in the years ahead.
In 2008 Atlantic Philanthropies, a charitable
trust, awarded RNNI a substantial grant, tapered over five years. This
has enabled the Network to employ a fulltime development manager; Alexey
Janes, an administrative officer; Avril Fairbrother and a part-time
training and facilitation office;, Margaret Gordon and to establish a
small accessible resource centre located in downtown Belfast. With
operational management in the competent hands of salaried staff, RNNI
has moved on to a new phase. The Board is now able to devote itself to
policy development, strategic planning and marketing, securing
longer-term financial viability and to reviewing its governance
arrangements which will become necessary with the impending introduction
of a Northern Ireland Charity Commission later this year.
Achievements
Looking back RNNI has come a long way from its
modest informal beginnings and has had some notable achievements along
the way. It sustains a regular training programme utilising various
teaching methods and formats. It undertakes practice-based demonstration
projects and offers consultative advice and information to other
organisations. It contributes to policy discussions and influenced
recommendations of the Review of Mental Health and Learning Disability
(Bamford Report 2006) concerning the relevance of reminiscence and other
psychosocial, educational, occupational and creative interventions to
improving the well-being of frail and vulnerable older people. It has
extended the capacity of substantial numbers of staff from public
libraries, museums and health and social care agencies to reach new and
under-served audiences and has benefited immensely as an organisation
from the expertise people from such backgrounds and others have made as
office bearers and board members. In 2003 RNNI organised a very
successful three day conference of the UK Reminiscence Network, Reminiscence and Community Integration which attracted some 150 participants and was held at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
Most training is offered on a multi-disciplinary,
multi-agency basis but some is commissioned as in-house bespoke
workshops. Some advanced training events are profession and or client
specific as illustrated by a recent request by speech and language
therapists for training in life story work for people with learning
disabilities. Our cross-sector, multi-disciplinary and
inter-professional membership is our great strength while the
cross-border perspective, together with respected expertise, makes RNNI
uniquely well placed to promote and develop reminiscence work and linked
creative activities within many other organisations throughout the
island of Ireland.
In its training and facilitation work RNNI has
embraced a variety of reminiscence activities. These range from simple
reminiscence and life story work with individuals and small groups, to
heritage and history, inter-generational work, using reminiscence to
establish common ground in cross-community groups, and adapting
reminiscence to the particular needs of people in contexts such as
education, sheltered housing, and specialist health and social care, for
example dementia services. Explicitly defined and more structured
methodologies have also been taught and facilitated with encouraging
outcomes and high levels of participant satisfaction. For example, RNNI
was a founder member, together with Belfast’s historic Linenhall Library
and the Ulster People’s College of Community Archiving Northern Ireland
(CANNI). A number of demonstration groups with people who have dementia
and their family, professional carers and volunteers based on the Remembering Yesterday, CaringToday
approach pioneered by the European Reminiscence Network (Schweitzer and
Bruce 2008) with whom we maintain close links have also been run in
partnership with staff from statutory services.
Other examples of the Network’s activities include
a pilot project with Mencap which explored the use of life story work
with ageing carers of adult children with learning disabilities as a
device for engaging carers in futures planning. A cross-border rural
women’s memory writing group was facilitated. Working with a local
cancer charity an autobiographical writing group based on Birren and
Cochrane (2001) for people who had been diagnosed with cancer proved
very worthwhile. Members collaborated with Barbara Haight from the
Medical University of South Carolina in a controlled structured life
review/life story book study with people living in three different types
of protected care in Northern Ireland (Haight, Michael and Gibson
2006). Currently some 35 staff from dementia day care and residential
services in the integrated Northern Health and Social Care Trust are
being trained to implement life story work and to use a prototype life
story book in preparation for establishing such work as an integral part
of service provision throughout the Trust, and hopefully in the future
also with a wider range of service users. A half day event “Blowing Your
Own Trumpet” recently enabled Network members to learn from each other,
celebrate and value achievements and generate ideas about possible
future directions.
Future intentions
These include seeking recognition and validation of
parts of the training portfolio by appropriate accreditation and
standards setting bodies, contributing a module at qualifying and post
qualifying levels, possibly with an Elearning element, to courses for
museum, library and health and social care professionals, standard
setting for practitioners and recruitment of additional tutors and
facilitators. Advocacy with policy makers and service providers about
the pivotal importance and potential health gain linked to involvement
in narrative-based creative activities will also be further
energetically pursued. There will be increased attention to membership
support, the continued publication of the twice yearly newsletter,
website updating and development of a higher public profile. The Valuing Heritage by Valuing Memories
project will continue for another year and further opportunities for
partnership projects including possibly the preparation of volunteer
home visitors will be sought.
The Network is committed to enhancing people’s
understanding of the processes involved and outcomes achieved of
recalled, reviewed and re-constructed ordinary but wonderful
recollections of personal life experience, accessed through memory and
imagination and preserved and transmitted in innumerable ways. RNNI sees
itself as a resource to other organisations, reminiscence
practitioners, researchers, students, community groups, families and
individuals who wish to capture, preserve and transmit their own unique
personal legacy.
Because of the generosity of its funders and the
commitment of many people, the Network is now well placed to focus on
achieving and documenting skilled evidence based reminiscence practice
and contributing to building knowledge about the rich reservoir of
biographical memory retrieved through reminiscence and linked creative
activities. RNNI seeks to make a difference to people in the present by
using their past to improve understanding, appreciation of and
communication about how they have got to where they now find themselves,
regardless of age and the changing circumstances and challenges they
now face.
Contact Information
www.rnni.org
Alexeyjanes@rnni.org
Reminiscence Network Northern Ireland
Community House
Citylink Business Park
6a Albert Street
Belfast BT12 4HQ Tel: 18002 028 90237820
References
Bamford Report (2006) Review of Mental Health and Learning Disability. Department of Health and Public Safety (NI). Belfast: DHSCPSNI.
Birren, J. and Cochran, K. (2001). Telling the Stories of Life through Guided Autobiography Groups. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Height, B.,K., Gibson, F., and Michel, Y. (2006)
The Northern Ireland Life review/Lifestorybook Project for people with
dementia. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 2, 56-58.
Schweitzer, p. & Bruce, E (2008) Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today: reminiscence in dementia care. London. Jessica Kingsley.