The Art of Connection: reflection on visiting 'Joy in Motion'

Hilary Conroy is one of our wonderful directors. She is a disability rights activist, decolonising academic and registered social worker, and is involved in numerous community-focused activities across the city including York Together and York Disability Rights Forum. Hilary brings expertise in safeguarding and community collaborations as well as connections to a network of systems changers seeking to make the world we live in better for everyone.

As a director of Moving Minds, I knew how much the movement sessions meant to the people involved in the community that has built up around them. I also knew how invested and caring the leaders of these sessions were about their work and the energy they put into planning and resourcing them.

When I visited, what struck me most was the easy comfort of the people in the room with one another. There was movement from the beginning, before anything formal started, with keeping a massive red balloon in the air. This was a fun and gentle activity while people settled into the space, caught up with friends and provided reassuring interaction to the members of the group living with dementia.

Elaine, Siân and Stephen moved in and out of various preparations, while welcoming everyone in and making sure people connected. It was beautiful to watch the affirmations of long standing relationships within the group, not just between partners, but between friends. One couple had not attended in some time and their relief, comfort and connections to others were obvious. There were so many micro-moments of reassurance and connection provided by the facilitators to (re)engage people into the movements and activities.

This session provides a space for people to engage in something that promotes movement, something that can be a struggle at times for older people, especially those living with dementia. It does this by offering simple suggestions for dance routines, coloured fabric and (most excitingly for me) a circular sheet with a hole in the middle and ball!

Possibly more importantly, the session allows carers to briefly share the care they provide 24 hours a day with trusted others. It facilitates conversations with other people who ‘get it’, a valuable activity of seeing and being seen. Caring can be a very isolating experience and loneliness is often reinforced by having to constantly explain the realities to people who have no idea what it is like.

Attending the session was a privilege. I was welcomed in as a new member, willed into the community by the curiosity and generosity of the established members. I loved every second and I’ll certainly be back.