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Balhousie Care Volunteering Project

This year, Harris Academy was been successful in securing £4,121 of funding from the Access to Education fund.  Within the last six months, young people accessing either Youth Achievement or Employability have been given the opportunity to volunteer at Balhousie Care Home and work with older people, many of whom have dementia.  

This has been a challenging but enjoyable experience for everyone and we applied to the fund so we could continue this intergenerational practice and also enhance it by establishing more of a partnership approach teaming up with St Johns’ pupils, youth workers, Balhousie staff, creative learning and local artists. We hope to do a number of things with the money including developing the garden area at the care home, working on signage for their café, carrying out weekly activities within the home and also accessing training for the pupils involved so as they are equipped with the skills to carry out the activities.   

By engaging in this project we are building pupil skills and knowledge, developing their self-awareness, self-worth and respect for others, enabling them to meet challenges, empowering them to contribute to their local community and giving them the opportunity for a successful learning experience within the community.   We also envisage meeting outcomes for the older people such as increased motivation, increased perception of self-worth, social contact, social inclusion and increased ability to make a contribution to the life of the community.