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Elderly 'hopeful' after home visits tackle loneliness

Jasmine DuFraisse
BBC News
Reporting fromManchester
BBC Two elderly ladies sat in a chair in the living room of their care home. They both have short grey hair and have huge smiles across their faces as they are looking at a toddler who is stood in front of them. The toddler is a small boy with short blonde hair and big blue eyes, he is holding onto his carer's hand with one arm and waving at the elderly ladies with his other hand. BBC
Residents Rita and Lorraine enjoyed spending time with the babies and toddlers at Lavender Hill Care Home.

Residents have praised a care home for giving them "hope" after it introduced a new initiative to tackle loneliness.

Every Tuesday, Lavender Hills Care Home in Ramsbottom allows members from a local baby and toddler group in so the residents can interactive with the children as part of a intergenerational mixing plan.

Talking Generations is a campaign which aims to build meaningful connections across generations by running a variety of sessions across the country.

Larraine Singleton, 82, who lives at Lavender Hills, said: "It was wonderful. I felt as if I had young children again."

Emily is a young woman who is looking directly at the camera and smiling. she has wavy, dark blonde hair that she is wearing down and small hoop earrings. She is wearing a yellow top that reads 'Intergenerational Music Making' and a colourful cardigan over the top. She is stood outside and behind her is the care home garden, you can see cut down grass, a grey brick wall and lots of trees.
Emily Abbott hopes to build strong relationships across different generations.

"It's lovely to see all these children dancing around with their parents and I just thought today, if this carries on, we'll be alright as a country."

Another resident, Rita Wilson, said: "With the children it's lovely and the little toddlers are wonderful."

"This is what they need, the children, they need to be mixing with different people all the time so they get used to it." she added.

Talking Generations is a collaborative campaign between the organisations Intergenerational England and Intergenerational Music Making.

Sue Nicholls said that her grandson enjoys visiting the residents.
Sue Nicholls brings her grandson to the weekly sessions and was full of praise for the initiative

Emily Abott, who runs the campaign, said: "We're working to try and replace the value on intergenerational relationships.

"As a country we're quite age-segregated, we don't necessarily build these strong relationships with people across different generations.

" So, we believe that it's really important to create space to harness those relationships," she added.

Sue Nicholls attends the weekly sessions with her grandson Francis.

Ms Nicholls said: "We love it, Francis loves coming singing and they're all so friendly and happy to see us each week.

"It gets them to meet the older generation and share their love and kindness with us."