ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Building Community through Arts’ (BCA's) innovative use of John Heron's Cooperative Inquiry method (a cycle of ‘idea, action and review’) with people with dementia (Heron, 1996). Basic communication skills and simple arts activities were introduced, with care staff, clients, school and business volunteers sharing in the inclusive training. Care staff, whose focus has often been limited to physical care, were helped to realize a more creative attitude to their day-to-day routines; clients benefited from the new inclusive attitudes towards ‘activities’; the BCA team and community volunteers, including those recruited from business and schools, gained insights, skills and satisfaction from knowing that they helped to make a difference to clients with dementia.
