Trucanta was a three-year initiative run by the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care and funded by Macmillan Cancer Support. The initiative was set up to support local communities across Scotland who are interested in taking community action to improve people’s experiences of death, dying, loss and care. The initiative has now ended, but below you can find out a bit more about the communities which took part:
Say Something Dundee
Say Something Dundee aims to make conversations about death, dying, loss and care easier to initiate. Over time we will deliver a range of workshops, conversation cafes and events which will explore What to Say when someone you know is going through a difficult time due to grief or supporting someone at the end of life. We aim to remove some of the barriers that stop people giving the support they want to give.
We will also be presenting a range of information to help prepare for end of life; Power of Attorney, Wills, Digital Legacy and funeral planning, ensuring your wishes and affairs are carried out the way you want them to be.
We work in partnership with Marie Curie, Dundee University, Funeral Link, DVVA, Just Bee Productions and Palliative Care Scotland. This partnership enables us to bring together those best placed to create the conversations necessary to create caring, compassionate communities.
Contact us by email – vanessa@funerallink.org.uk or saysomethingdundee@gmail.com
Like us on Facebook - @SaySomethingDundee
Highland Truacanta
Highland Truacanta was a partnership of three Highland wide organisations; Highland Senior Citizens Network, Highland Hospice and Creativity in Care. Our aim was to support communities to have conversations about End of Life, leading to the development of locally appropriate support, and leaving communities with a suite of activities to assist at end of life. Highland Hospice Last Aid workshop and creative conversations facilitated by Creativity in Care were offered to HSCN’s members and the communities they live in, initially online and later in-person. Communities were given the opportunity to participate in EASE and made aware of useful resources to support at End of Life.
For more information, please contact the Co-ordinator Highland Senior Citizens Network at anne-hscn@outlook.com or by phone at 07933 653313.
Creativity in Care
Creativity In Care CIC is a socially engaged arts community company in the Highlands creatively exploring topics about life stories, celebrating life, reducing stigma, and increasing compassion. Over the years, our work around death, dying and grief has developed into an activities kit called 'The Creative Conversations Kit' which contains arts materials and guide notes, for four to six sessions. These include:Heart Map, Remembrance Tree of Life; Conversations Book with bucket list, Funeral plans; Design a Monument. Through Truacanta and in partnership with HSCN and Highland Hospice we also developed single session workshops online such as 'The shape of grief'; 'Poppies and roses' and 'The unspoken words' - to get difficult conversations started around death, dying and grief
Creativity in Care Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/creativityincare
For more information, contact info@creativityincare.org
North Berwick Compassionate Communities
North Berwick Compassionate Communities (NB CC) is a small volunteer led community development project. NB CC was a sub-group of North Berwick Coastal Health and Well-being Association from 2015 to 2021. Prior to the Truacanta award, the small group of volunteers had been exploring community interest in North Berwick for a compassionate community project.
Since then, the group has developed two strands to the project. The Big Conversation Strand supports public conversations about death, dying and grief in the community. Events have included a talk by Kathryn Mannix, a community art project in collaboration with pARTicipate, and events with Fringe by the Sea which included BSL interpreters, as well as yearly public projects for Demystifying Death Week and To Absent Friends. The Support Strand of the project saw NB CC chosen as one of the pilot areas for the local St Columba’s Hospice Compassionate Neighbours project: an ‘emotional and practical support’ initiative, for which group members have been trained by the hospice as Compassionate Neighbours and have also completed the EASE (End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone) training. NB CC includes two trained EASE facilitators who continue to offer the course to members of the community. Going forward, the group is going to have a paid position to help develop the project.
NB Compassionate Community would like to thank partners North Berwick Coastal Community Connections, Truacanta, PARTicipate, Fringe by the Sea, St Columba’s Hospice and North Berwick Coastal Health and Wellbeing Association for all their support.
Website: www.nbc-communityconnections.org
Facebook page for North Berwick Coastal Community Connections
For more information, email Carol at nbc-communityconnections@outlook.com (please mention that you are asking about North Berwick Compassionate Communities).
Truacanta Perthshire
Truacanta Perthshire has had an interesting journey, not least with the pandemic changing how we all worked and lived with each other. Before lockdown, we managed to have a fantastic ‘To Absent Friends’ event, held in the Perth and Kinross grand head office civic hall. The evening was filmed, and is still available to view on this link.
It seems like a lifetime ago and although the ethos of compassionate communities and Truacanta is very much about connecting with each other through loss and grief, we had to think of something different which would be recognisable to people as a symbol of hope and togetherness through the pandemic. Thus, the Truacanta Perthshire selfie wings were born; designed and painted by young carers on a big blue door of a rugby store.
The response was amazing – people would post photos of themselves and share reminiscences about people they had lost, and other sets of wings popped up in Perthshire. They became the symbol of National Recovery week, and a recognised place to meet. “I’ll get you at the wings.”
Sadly, nothing lasts for ever, and we lost the wings to a can of black paint last year. However, they have been resurrected in a small way on a ‘Listening Bench’ not far from the original site, thanks to some funding. It’s lovely to see a legacy of Truacanta Perthshire for people to enjoy.
If you have questions about Truacanta Perthshire, contact Emma or find them on Twitter @truacanta.
