FORGET MEMORY BLOG

And I don’t think it was just the fragrance of cherry blossoms wafting through DC this week.

Monday through Wednesday, March 29 – April 1st, The National Center for Creative Aging held its Creativity Matters: Health, Wellness, and the Arts symposium.  Executive Director Gay Hanna organized the perfect blend of presenters, peppered with introducers/responders who represented national organizations that were important witnesses to the event and contacts for people at the event, including Paula Terry (NEA’s Office of Accessibility), Marie Bernard (Deputy Director of the NIA), Judy Diaz (Director of Brand Strategy for PBS), Marsha Semmel (Dep. Director for Museums and Director of Strategic Partnerships, Institute of Museum and Library Services).

The 60 people who attended the TimeSlips creative storytelling workshop on Monday (and the 100+ folks who attended the MOMA training on Tuesday/Wed) came from all over the country – which suprised both me and Gay.  We had expected more of a local crowd.

There’s clearly a hunger for the establishment of infrastructure for the field of making the arts accessible to people with dementia and their caregivers – whether they are at home with family or living in group settings.  People want to know about funding, about sustaining programs, about networking, about deeper training practices.  They want to move past limitations – stigma, fear, outdated regulations, outdated assumptions that pills are the only part of treatment for dementia.

The National Center for Creative Aging seems poised to continue to collaborate with “best practice” programs to bring these methods out to the rest of the country, and to act as a convener/connector/networking venue to capture and grow the interest in this field.  Now to figure the angle to get them the funding to do it!

HIGHLIGHTS:

• squirming while Dina Zempsky and I waited patiently for the audio tracks to play… (you can hear them all on storycorps.net)
  
• getting to present with Dina…
• The Phillips Collection – how lovely…
• Talking with Anne Robinson about the exciting things that are happening with this year’s Edna Gates conference in Detroit.
• Seeing and talking with TimeSlips Trainers and others who’ve gone through the training and talked of how much they enjoy the work…
• Amir Parsa’s usual panache!
• Really learning more about Meet Me at MOMA – and figuring out more about the common roots of successful programs and the distinctions as well.
• Eating good Thai food….yum – can’t get that in Milwaukee…(cruel)
• Catching up with my friend Joe over a banana and iced tea…and talking about the wide trends in the field.
• Collecting cards from people who are starting or have started their own programs all across the country.