Finding confidence, connection and independence through Love to Move
At R&R Day Services in Whitehaven, Love to Move is helping people stay active, connected and independent – while giving staff new skills to support the people they work with.
For the people attending R&R Day Services in Whitehaven, staying active is about much more than exercise. It is about maintaining independence, building confidence, connecting with others and continuing to enjoy everyday life.
Known as VIPs at R&R, attendees range in age from 56 to 101 and have a wide range of health conditions and support needs. Some experience social isolation, while others attend to give their loved ones a valuable respite break. The team’s aim is simple: to help their VIPs live independently for longer, while supporting families and reducing the need for additional services. One of the ways they are doing this is through Love to Move, the seated exercise programme created by the British Gymnastics Foundation.
Movement with a purpose
Love to Move uses specially designed movement activities, music and cognitive exercises to make physical activity accessible and enjoyable for people of all abilities. The programme is particularly suited to older people and those who may face barriers to traditional forms of exercise.
For participants, the benefits can be both physical and emotional. One 88-year-old VIP, who lives alone following the death of her husband, describes how attending R&R has changed how she feels:
Building confidence through movement
For many people, maintaining mobility can be an important part of maintaining independence.
The R&R team has seen first-hand what can happen when regular activity stops. Following periods in hospital, or when the centre has had to close, staff have noticed significant changes in the mobility and activity levels of some VIPs when they return.
“They’re not as mobile. They’re not as active as they were prior to that,” says Ann-Marie. Love to Move provides an opportunity to build movement into regular routines in a way that is accessible, engaging and enjoyable.
Supporting people as individuals
Melinda Scott, who completed her Love to Move training to deliver sessions at R&R, has seen the difference it can make. “We are seeing people grow in confidence,” she says. “We’ve seen people who don’t necessarily do a lot of activity gaining more strength.”
The development of Love to Move at R&R Day Services was supported through the Live Longer Better in Cumbria Reconditioning Fund, delivered by Active Cumbria, helping the service to invest in staff training and create more opportunities for people to stay active and independent.
Melinda
For Melinda, completing the Love to Move training changed the way she thinks about supporting people:
The impact goes beyond the participants
Love to Move doesn’t just benefit the people taking part. By training staff and community professionals to deliver the programme, it creates a sustainable way for movement and activity to become part of people’s everyday lives.
With support from the Live Longer Better in Cumbria Reconditioning Fund, Melinda’s training has added another tool to the team’s ability to support its VIPs. “The upskilling of our staff just means that we’re not standing still,” says Ann-Marie. “They’ve got another interest that they can introduce to our VIPs and when the VIPs are enjoying it, they’ve got a purpose.”
This is at the heart of the British Gymnastics Foundation’s approach to Love to Move: training people to deliver meaningful movement sessions within their own communities, creating opportunities for people to stay active, socially connected and independent.
“I feel as though I’ve got a place in life”
Perhaps the most powerful impact is the way movement can help people reconnect not only with their bodies, but with other people and with a sense of purpose.
Melinda describes watching participants become more confident and involved as “amazing”: “To see people that you support come out of themselves and be able to take part in something and be proud – that, for me, was just amazing.”
For Ann-Marie, that sense of inclusion and possibility is central to what R&R is trying to achieve. “There should be no barrier to anybody achieving what they want to, or being able to take part,” she says. “That’s our biggest aim, really: to make sure that our VIPs are getting the best out of their lives.”
Love to Move: creating opportunities through movement
Stories like those from R&R Day Services demonstrate why Love to Move is about much more than seated exercise. Through music, movement, cognitive stimulation and social interaction, Love to Move gives people an opportunity to move, participate and connect – whatever their age or ability. And by training staff and community organisations to deliver the programme, the British Gymnastics Foundation is helping make those opportunities available to more people across the UK.
Love to Move is helping people move more, feel better, stay connected and live more independently – one session at a time.
Train as a Love to Move deliverer, or find a local session for a loved one: email: theteam@britishgymnasticsfoundation.org
Support us to train more people and ensure that everyone who needs it has access to Love to Move.
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