Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) operates five residential care homes for older people across the city, all of which were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As restrictions began to be relaxed, and the care homes moved to a position of recovery, it was important to reflect our staff’s experiences and express this through art. This artwork could serve as both a memorial and be a testament to our staff’s resilience to keep residents and colleagues supported during the pandemic and the challenges that it brought.

A video has been put together that follows the development of the concept for the artwork with staff, to the final artwork which will be displayed in each home’s public spaces. It also features how care home staff supported one another, residents and their families during the pandemic.

Frances McMeeking, our HSCP’s Assistant Chief Officer, Operational Care Services said: “We have 730 staff employed directly in our Operational Residential Care Services supporting around 550 residents. We were fortunate to secure national funding to support staff wellbeing, so that all five of our residential care homes could take part in a unique project that would have a legacy in a piece of art, that will be unique to each care home.”  

“We worked with Tommy Whitelaw, National Lead for Caring and Outreach from the ALLIANCE and their Artist in Residence Xuechang Leng to create this art and to run a number of workshops with our staff to reflect and look back at their own unique experiences of the last two and a half years.”

Xuechang is an architectural artist who works with teams and individuals to develop pieces of art and sculpture that reflect moods and experience. Being of Chinese origin he uses colour to express feelings, as words in the Chinese language have representative colours. He specialises in working with therapeutic spaces that are meaningful to users and staff and has significant knowledge of people living with dementia.

Robin Wallace, our HSCP’s Head of Service for Older People’s Residential and Day Care Services explained how the project was developed. He said: “We held a series of workshop sessions within each of our care homes, providing an opportunity for Tommy and Xuechang to listen to staff about what matters to them. Feedback was sought from staff both during the sessions and in the form of pledge cards, which everyone was encouraged to complete. The stories shared through these cards were then used to form sketches and concepts for the new pieces of art. Initial sketches were shared with staff for comments to ensure that the art produced was meaningful and reflective of their experience, representing what matters to them.”

The concept for the artwork was to capture the most common words shared by staff about what is important to them, such as ‘love’, ‘care’, ‘family’, and represent these words as soundwaves. Creating this visual reminder of what’s important in our lives allows us to keep kindness and compassion at the heart of what we do.

Staff felt strongly that the pieces of art should be enjoyed by everyone, especially the residents of our care homes. This will be achieved by placing them in the public spaces of the care homes, as an everlasting dedication to staff.