The Rooiels Trust has been working with Brigadoon home for dementia residents in Betty’s Bay for the past year. The possibility was raised of the residents benefiting from using Lego, which links to one of the Trust Projects. Two of their staff attended the training in August, with a large box of Lego donated by Care for Education.
In August, Wolfgang, Ivan and Rory from the Rooiels Trust joined Karen Chambers (a specialist Educator from Care for Education) to obtain feedback from the Brigadoon staff.
We met JC and his wife, Elseline, the founders of Brigadoon and two caregivers.
The feedback was encouraging. Elseline provided detailed notes of how many of the residents have benefited from interacting with Lego. An example was a former Electrical Engineer suffering from dementia, who started to do engineering drawings, memories which were triggered through engaging with the Lego blocks. Karen from Care for Education noted that research is currently being conducted in this area and provided contacts for the Brigadoon staff to further engage.
Karen also offered for additional Lego to be donated as some of the residents can engage for a couple of hours at a time through this interaction, which the Brigadoon care-givers see as being very beneficial.
The Rooiels Outreach Trust will continue to engage with Brigadoon and understand how we can keep supporting them.
Please consider donating to this worthy cause. You can also read about how Lego is benefitting primary schools in our area.
