Stirling Reminiscence Box

In 2021, Stirling Council committed to making Stirling a Dementia Friendly City. Our Reminiscence Boxes contribute to these wider strategic plans for promoting mental health and wellbeing in Stirling. With an estimated 600+ people with dementia in Stirling City, its Eastern Villages, Bridge of Allan and Dunblane, and the prevalence of dementia in the population set to increase, projects like ours are crucial.

Reminiscence Therapy involves discussing events and experiences from the past, and aims to evoke memories, stimulate mental activity and improve a person's wellbeing. Research has shown that Reminiscence Therapy can help older people with depression to focus on positive aspects of their past, encouraging positive thoughts. It is particularly useful for people living with Dementia, as they often have a better memory for the distant past than they do for recent events. Our Boxes provide a meaningful activity for users and they also give carers and loved ones an opportunity to reconnect with the person with Dementia. Dementia can cause people to withdraw and become easily distracted, which makes engaging with them difficult at times. Our Boxes stimulate conversation and encourage them to socialise with other users, carers and loved ones.

Our Reminiscence Boxes are available in two sizes, and they celebrate the history and heritage of Stirling, and contain photographs, postcards, tickets and architectural plans relating to themes including work, leisure and entertainment, important local events, and education. 

We launched our Reminiscence Boxes & Packs at William Simpson Care Home and have received great feedback from users. William Simpson’s Activity & Media Manager said she was thrilled to hear the room so noisy, full of residents chatting, and said that a number of the residents were far more engaged than usual. We had some great conversations with residents about everything from showing Highland Cows at competitions, to trips to the cinema and learning to swim. Residents enjoyed looking at Stirling from a new perspective through our drone photographs, and the images of Queen Elizabeth II’s visits to the city in the 1960s and 70s proved particularly popular. Stirling MP, Alyn Smith, also visited our office recently and was impressed with this unique resource.

Reminiscence Boxes will be distributed to every library in the Stirling Council area, and will also be given out to care homes and community groups.  If you would like to enquire about a Box please get in touch: ­­­­­­­­­­rachael@scht.org.uk

This project was made possible via funding from the Ideas, Innovation, Improvement Assessment Fund administered by Stirlingshire Voluntary Enterprise. 

With huge thanks to Stirling Archives and The Stirling Smith for generously supplying us with images from their collections for use in our Boxes.