An introduction...

Our Community Arts project is working with people who visit the Saint Christopher's Hospice and creating a piece of work based on their anecdotes, stories and experiences.

Before beginning the first session, I decided to do some research into what a hospice was, having not had any personal experiences of what a hospice is like.

Google's definition of a hospice is "a home providing care for the sick or terminally ill". To me, this sounds quite clinical and seems like quite a scary prospect considering that the people there will be very ill. However, I am excited to have a new experience that I have not had before and am interested to challenge myself and be out of my comfort zone.

Dame Cicely Saunders

When I was doing some research into hospices, I found out that St Christopher's, where we will be working, was actually the world's first modern hospice. In 1967 (which I found shocking due to how recent ago it was) Dame Cicely Saunders founded St Christopher's.

Dame Cicely was born in 1918 and started her career as a nurse and furthered it to become a medical social worker and physician. Her firm religious beliefs supported all of her work and her Christian values were what led her to creating a place where people could go specifically for palliative care, which up until the late 1960s just did not exist. According to the St Christopher's website, she was "made a Dame in 1979 and awarded the Order of Merit in 1989", showing just how crucial her work was. She passed away peacefully at St Christopher's Hospice, the place she founded just under 40 years before her death in July 2005. Her legacy is incredible, and being the first of its kind and the history behind it makes it even more special for our project.

St Christopher's Hospice is a registered charity, meaning that only 1/3 of its services are paid for by the NHS, and the rest is covered from individuals, companies and trusts, which looks after 2,500 adults per annum. It is also provides an education in palliative care in an Education Centre on the site which 4,000 health and social care professionals attend every year. Having found out all this information about St Christopher's, it has fuelled my energy to go and be a part of it, and has made me think of it as a much more 'real' place rather than an unknown, as I was regarding it as before.

On the whole, I am optimistic and positive approaching the term and will put my best effort into making the best possible piece of work for the benefit of both the patients and us, the performers.