How is TimeSlips Adjusting to COVID19?

April 20, 2020

the TimeSlips Team

TimeSlips has been offering online training and a virtual support network for caregivers and artists across the world since 2011. So in some ways, we are uniquely geared to meet the challenges of this moment.

Most residents in care homes are on lockdown, with no family or volunteer visits and no communal activities or even dining.  Care partners at home must make do without their usual social supports and much valued respite programs.

We are listening carefully to the moment and adjusting in several ways.

1) Bringing tools for meaningful connection to you.
Our Creativity Center is always open and free – with over 400 prompts for engagement. But rather than have to come to the site, we created a weekly email with prompts and ideas so you just have to click in one sport for enough inspiration to get you through the week.  These include free, downloadable pdf pages that can be printed, copied and shared with individual elders.  You can sign up for our newsletters / emails here.

We commissioned an artist to create mural templates that can be drawn on the outside of care home windows and filled in from the inside. These also serve as coloring pages, easily downloaded, copied and shared with residents.

We created 4 Beautiful Question postcards (the first 250 sites that signed up get them free!) that can be shared through Meals on Wheels, food stock boxes, or care home staff.  Responses can shared by email, mail, or via our contact form.  We aim to create audio collages of the responses that can be shared by public radio. You can participate as well – using our Beautiful Questions in the Creativity Center.

We have also created a weekly web series based on the multi-year long project in 12 nursing homes in Kentucky, “Wendy’s Neverland”. Each week, the web series shares a video workshop that walks you through some creative activities and discussions (start and stop as you like), and a printable worksheet version of the workshop which can be filled out individually. Click here for more information and links to the videos and worksheets.

2) Offering a weekly, virtual Creative Care Engagement session
In collaboration with our partners Dementia Inclusive Durham, we are creating 20 minute live creative care engagement sessions inspired by a Beautiful Question.
These are led by TimeSlips trained artists and become webinars that you can revisit as needed. See our webinar page for the archive.

3) Sending love to nursing homes (who request it!) 
With an international network of creative folks and thousands upon thousands of care homes on lockdown, we are curating a list of homes requesting cards to brighten the day of residents. We recently added a map of all the sites and a drop-down menu so you can track which homes need more mail.

4) Discounted Online Training and Certification through June
Through the end of June 2020, we are offering our TimeSlips Creative Storytelling online training at a discount. We know how important it is to engage with older adults all the time, but especially now during the spread of COVID-19 when many find they are living in isolation. We are extending our online training family caregiver discount to everyone through the rest of the month. Receive our evidence-based online training for just $29. Want to deepen your practice and work with an expereinced TimeSlips Certified Trainer? Get training and certification for 30% off. Click here to learn more!

5) Launching Creative Care and the Creative Care Imgination Kit
Founder and President Anne Basting’s new book Creative Care chronicles the power of using imagination to forge meaningful relationships and build community in late life. The book is available May 19th. Email info@timeslips.org to host a virtual book reading. Creative Care will be followed up with an imagination kit, featuring 25 Beautiful Questions and Thoughtful Actions, and 25 image prompts to inspire creative stories. With the tremendous need among carepartners, we wish this kit was available now… but look for it later in 2020.

Our work to bring meaningful connection to late life has never felt more important. You can join us by taking our online training, or by donating to our efforts. The TimeSlips team is working overtime to ensure that isolation means safety, not despair.

To learn more about all these resources, see our resources page.