The joint winners of a new community award were recently announced.
Crieff’s Richmond House and Corbenic Camphill Community, near Dunkeld, both received the inaugural Tony Barker Award launched by local arts project Generating Opportunity CIC.
Members of the Richmond House team were recently presented with their trophy at a coffee morning featuring a performance by talented musician Chris White.
Alison Kindness, principal officer at the Drummond Terrace facility, said: “We were honoured and delighted to receive the Tony Barker Award, particularly in its inaugural year, and would like to thank the assessors – including Mr Barker’s widow – and Generating Opportunities for recognising all the work carried out by the team.”
Generating Opportunity CIC director Linda Grant said the award was created to celebrate “outstanding community contribution” by care settings across the region.
She continued: “We have been fortunate to work alongside many local care homes over the past three years through delivering arts and reminiscence activities through our online film library and partner networks and we have been amazed at the capacity for care home staff and residents to support their own communities in the most challenging of situations.
“We wanted to recognise and celebrate their outstanding achievements with an annual award in memory of our late director Tony Barker, which would shine a light on their incredible work within their own communities and celebrate the ongoing contribution by care home residents in enriching the quality of life for others.”
The judges commented on Richmond House’s “lovely ideas to being residents and community closer together”, including inter-generational work with St Dominic’s RC Primary School, community health walks and multiple acts of kindness – such as gifting hand-painted coasters and tea bags and donating more than 500 ‘chat and treat’ food boxes to local residents during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, there were celebrations elsewhere in the town as The Birches Care Home in Crieff was presented with a ‘commended’ award as part of the same project.
Over the past three years, Generating Opportunity CIC has been working with care homes and mental health support groups to support skills development and social and community connections, through an online arts and reminiscence film library, featuring local artists and creative practitioners, with online support and regular deliveries of arts materials to up to 40 care homes and community groups.
One of the most recent projects has been to work with older residents in Strathearn to record their life stories, which is now being expanded.
