Learn how creativity and intergenerational practice are reshaping dementia care through highlights and insights from Only Connect!
Only Connect! 2025 was an international community symposium on the benefits of creative, intergenerational, and inclusive practice. Held over 22-23 October, it was the third in-person event hosted by the Only Connect! network. The symposium took place across three venues on the west coast of Cornwall: Newlyn Art Gallery, The Exchange in Penzance, and Potager Garden.
The event was co-chaired by Ellie Robinson-Carter, Programme Director of the University of Hull’s online MSc in Dementia, and Peter Daniels, the former Chief Happiness Officer of Humanitas Deventer in the Netherlands.
These two days offered a vivid glimpse into the lived experiences of people living with dementia and how we can build a happier future for them. Here's what the event was, who came, why it mattered, and what unfolded across the two days.
The symposium brought together people living with dementia, primary school children, headteachers, artists, researchers, care professionals, and representatives of national and international care projects. It drew together people exploring how creativity, community, and intergenerational connection can reshape dementia support.
This mix was deliberate. As Ellie Robinson-Carter explained, the network exists in part to give practitioners a community. "Often it's just finding a community that can be your cheerleader," she said, "but also take your work to the next level by working together."
Among those sharing their stories were Ronald Amanze, a poet, artist, and former record producer living with dementia; Ben Towe, an executive headteacher whose schools run intergenerational projects with a local care home; and researchers including Dr Emily Dodd and Dr Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith. Crucially, people living with dementia were central to the conversation.
At its heart, Only Connect! explored how creative practice can support people living with dementia. It aimed to show how bringing them together with young people can be galvanising for everyone involved.
The network is also driven by a desire to change the story told about dementia. Ellie spoke about countering the loss-focused perception of dementia that dominates so much media coverage. "We look at the possibilities rather than the challenges," she said.
The symposium itself opened with that intention taking front and centre stage. The first session was titled "The Long Hello" - a deliberate counter to the familiar "long goodbye" framing of dementia, which members of the network's advisory group had found distressing. "We need to have that as our title," one member living with memory loss had said. The team ran with it.
For Peter, the purpose runs even deeper. He sees this kind of gathering as the foundation of something bigger. "That's the start of community," he said, "and that's the start of a good society."
Day one began at The Exchange in Penzance with an opening panel. It brought together people living with dementia, a local headteacher, two secondary school students, and Peter himself. As Ellie put it, "This is who we are. We want to know who you are too."
From there, the day moved to Newlyn Art Gallery for a series of creative workshops. Attendees walked by the sea, took photos, and explored an art exhibition through multi-sensory engagement. They also worked with clay alongside a local dementia-friendly walking group. One attendee described the journey through rural Cornwall as a kind of pilgrimage.
The afternoon turned to research and practice, with sessions on co-production and creative research methods. Dr Emily Dodd spoke about rural communities — work shaped, in part, by her own grandparents' journeys with dementia.
Dr Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith, a researcher and textile artist, shared the sensory methods she uses for creative research. The day closed at Potager Garden with an evening meal made from garden-grown produce, and a talk from Danny McCubbin of The Good Kitchen, Sicily.
Day two was designed for consolidation and reflection. It opened with Ronald Amanze's Box of Smiles workshop, which invited participants to share what makes them smile, then wove their words into a music piece.
Ronald explained how creative practice and community engagement transformed his life after a series of strokes and a dementia diagnosis. "Despite all my health concerns, every day I feel amazing," he said. "I still live with a lot of purpose, and my purpose is fuelled by the creative activity I'm involved in."
The day also heard from Sue Egersdorff of Ready Generations, whose intergenerational nursery shows how integrated communities be reimagined.
Ben Towe shared what intergenerational work looks like from his school's side. He described the warm, lasting friendship between Merlin, a former pupil, and Pam, a care home resident. "It's not necessarily about words," he said. "It's about touch, it's about that communication." Ben also gently challenged how "person-centred care" is sometimes understood, offering his own framing: "The care is human, and it's authentic."
Dr Rachael Jones led a collective waveform collage workshop, and the symposium then closed with Ellie Robinson-Smith and Peter Daniels gathering everyone's final reflections. A room of people who had arrived as strangers were leaving as collaborators.
What Only Connect! 2025 made clear is that the future of dementia care will be shaped by people who can look at care from every angle. People who can recognise both the challenges and the possibilities. People who can listen to a school pupil, a researcher, a person living with dementia, and an educator in the same conversation. People who can find the threads that connect them.
If this sounds like the kind of thinking you'd like to be part of, the University of Hull's 100% online, part-time MSc Dementia is your starting point:
Photo credits: Only Connect! and The Photobook Project