*Friluftsliv; a handy word meaning open-air living, capturing the Scandinavian approach to living life in harmony in nature.

In the countryside near Løten, the gently rolling hills are dotted with the red painted barns that are so indicative of the Norwegian landscape.  Crops are sprouting in the fields and a herd of cows with their new calves are munching hay in a farmyard.  This is proper farming country, but I’m on my way to a day care centre for people with dementia.  As I photograph some milk churns at the end of the drive, a taxi full of elderly gentlemen pass me, also on their way to Lillehov, a farm that has provided day care services for over twenty years.  Ingunn Sigstad Moen meets me outside her house to welcome me in. It is a beautiful wooden farm building, full of fascinating old kitchen implements, but the group are already sitting around the table drinking coffee and talking about the day ahead, so I go to join them.  Lillehov doesn’t feel like a care facility, more like a warm friendly home, and that’s because it is.

The Norwegian municipalities (local authorities) provide free day care for every citizen who needs it, and farm-based day care is one means of providing it, with around 400 care farms across the country, delivering services for young people and adults with mental health issues, and for people living with dementia.  Attendees come for one or more days a week as part of a small group who participate in activities on the farm such as feeding animals, gardening or cooking. Providers offer a safe home-like environment in a quiet, rural setting with activities that are embedded in everyday life.

I spoke to Ingerborg Pederson, a researcher from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås.  They have done extensive research into how farm-based day care compares to regular day care, and the benefits are manifold.  The setting plays a large part in enabling participants to feel relaxed and part of a community.  We discuused how activities that are purposeful, real and useful, not created just for the benefit of participants, mean people feel that they are contributing.  As dementia progresses and slowly robs an individual of their abilities, it can erode their sense of confidence and self-worth too.  But at farm-based day care, the activities may be things attendees have done all their lives like stacking logs, so continuing to do them contributes to their self-identity and sense of accomplishment.

We’re not working at Lillehov today because there is a rumour that the cuckoos have returned so we’re going out to listen for them.  We walk through the woods, stopping to see which berries are ripening or to pick up pinecones.  The farm-based day care is shown to keep attendees active for longer, not because it can ‘cure’ the effects of dementia or other conditions of old age, but because when there are jobs to do and places to go, attendees are more motivated to keep active, rather than sitting in a chair all day.  One of the group mischievously throws the pinecones at the others walking ahead, then pretends it wasn’t him, while telling me about the mysterious woodland spirit, Huldra.  Not everyone is feeling talkative today, but the atmosphere is jolly, with lots of jokes and some teasing, because everyone in the  small group of participants plus Ingunn from Lillehov and Ragnhild, who is employed by the municipality, and Mona, who Ingunn has employed to help out, all know each other well.  I can tell they all feel safe and confident in each other’s company, which is so important to combat the worry and anxiety that can come with a dementia diagnosis.  We stop by a lake for coffee and a tasty cake, which the group had made earlier in the week.  We hear the cuckoos and also spot an unusual bird in the reeds.  One of the men, who had been quiet today, stood for some time whistling to the bird.  It was a magical moment, seeing him fully engaged in a connection with nature.

On my Churchill Fellowship study trip looking at how we can enable nature connections for elderly people, one of the key learning points is the importance of connection itself.  The saying goes that you shouldn’t work with children or animals, but its clear that connecting with both is a feature of some of the best practice that I am seeing in Norway.  Feeding and looking after animals on the farm is a good source of engagement and sparks conversations between the group.  It’s satisfying to throw corn to feed chickens, but it needs doing too, so at the end of the day, farmers thank the day care attendees for helping out.  At nursing homes I met earlier in the trip, visits from dogs, cats and even alpacas brought smiles to residents faces, and you don’t need words to commune with animals, a good stroke or a cuddle is enough.

Connections between the generations is something I’ve heard about a lot too and its behind one of the principles of Livsglede for Eldre, (meaning Joy of Life for the Elderly), the quality assurance scheme to which some of the nursing homes I visited are signed up.  There are  ‘Livsglede’ kindergardens, whose children visit nursing homes, wearing backpacks full of toys to prompt playful exchanges.  Cecilie Bølso Langeli, a nurse and Livsglede coordinator from Kammfjordhjemmet nursing home told me that a lot of the residents don’t have any family, so it’s nice when the nursery children climb onto the residents’ laps to give them a hug – and they often fall asleep together!

I have been privileged to experience so much on this trip.  I now have to make sense of it all, which is what I will start to do as I make my long way home via boat and train across Europe.  It’s too soon to say how I will implement this learning in the UK, but if I am to try and summarise that I have learnt I could do worse than borrow the famous words that EM Forster uses to preface his novel Howards End;  ‘Only connect’. In continuing to connect with nature we can find the peace and joy it offers.  In connecting with others we remove isolation and stigmatisation and find the sense of belonging to a community that we all need, and by enabling person-centred nature and social connections we can help individuals connect to themselves, preserving their sense of identity and ensure that everyone feels valued, accepted and respected.

With grateful thanks to Ingunn Sigstad Moen of Lillehov and Ingerborg Pederson of Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås for their help and hosting