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Sporting Memories working with the next generation

Jim Purvis, one of our fantastic Community Club Co-ordinators in the West of Scotland, has been working on several projects that help support our work from a multi-generational perspective and below describes how he brought two together to raise awareness of Sporting Memories in the local community.

Bringing projects together

Jim has been building excellent relationships with the Mental Health and Wellbeing class at Cardinal Newman High School. You can read about that journey here.

Being someone who is quite passionate about intergenerational projects, Jim has also been supporting Glasgow Caledonian University Occupational Health Students with work placements. Information on that here.

And for Jim it was time to bring the projects together.

The pupils are in sixth year and Jim thought that it might be an idea to have the current occupational therapy (OT) students visit the school to talk to the pupils about their placement with Sporting Memories.

They also discussed occupational therapy and how it can support individuals and communities living with depression, dementia and social isolation in particular. This was organised with the class teacher Lisa Lynch for earlier this month.

Everybody is a winner

The meeting between the students was very informal and the OT students confidently handled all of the questions the pupils and teacher posed before rounding off the session.

Jim recalled a positive meeting: “I'm pleased to say that the morning went very well. We had a quiz organised by the pupils (the SM team won narrowly!) and then Jade and Victoria, the current students on placement, spoke very informatively about their course and what it involves.”

The students were happy to have had the opportunity to evangelise about occupational therapy and the pupils seemed to enjoy hearing from them. Indeed, one of the pupils is hoping to be accepted for the course at Glasgow Caledonian University to start in the autumn. Perhaps we will see her back as an OT Student Placement with Sporting Memories in the near future!

To find out more about these projects in Scotland, get in touch with Jim via jim.purvis@sportingmemories.uk