Dementia Care Comics Presentation at the 2019 CSSC/SCEBD Conference, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of British Columbia

The Douglas College Dementia Care Comics Project is an extension of a partnership with City, University of London and Chester University that produced Parables of Care, a collection of four-panel strips in Yonkoma manga style that told the stories of UK caregivers’ ingenuity in solving dementia crises. The strips, drawn by comics artist and scholar Simon Grennan, were adapted from entries in City’s Share ‘n’ Care app for dementia caregivers.

Parables of Care was edited and adapted by Dr Simon Grennan (University of Chester) Dr Ernesto Priego (City, University of London) and Dr Peter Wilkins (Douglas College).  Parables of Care was drawn by Dr Simon Grennan with Christopher Sperandio.

Parables of Care is a project of the Centre for Human Comuter Interaction Design, City, University of London, The University of Chester, UK, and Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada. The project leader is Dr Ernesto Priego, Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London.

On behalf of Parables of Care, Dr Peter Wilkins will make a presentation about the Douglas Dementia Care Comics Project and Parables of Care in the 2019 CSSC/SCEBD conference, held as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of British Columbia, Canada, June 4–5 2019. The program is also available as a PDF.

The Douglas Project is based on interviews with professional caregivers and students from the College’s Health Sciences faculty and other members of the college community. One of our most interesting discoveries has been the tension between professional and familial roles in Health Sciences faculty who have family members experiencing dementia. Our team, which includes Nursing faculty, Student Research Assistants, and an artist, has evaluated these interviews for structures and motifs in the dementia situation and we have begun the process of producing pages.

While the earlier project was modeled on the literary form of parable, the Douglas project emulates Greek Tragedy because of the way the interviews reflect on the inevitability of dementia’s progress once it has been diagnosed and the stratagems caregivers employ to forestall that inevitability. Because dementia is a family systems condition, we cast the primary familial caregiver as the tragic hero and the non-caregiving family members as the chorus. The prologue and exodus, meanwhile, are delivered in the voice of an experienced psychiatric nurse who is up to date on current techniques of working with dementia.

Peter will discuss their process and decision making, the rationale for choosing tragedy as a genre, and how this relates to theories of comics, remediation and adaptation, and graphic medicine.

Dr Peter Wilkins is the Research and Innovation Office Coordinator at Douglas College. As a comics scholar, he is an editor at The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, co-founder of the blog Graphixia: a Conversation about Comics, and is the author and co-author of several essays on comics theory and texts, including “The Question Concerning Comics as Technology: Gestell and Grid” (with Ernesto Priego), and “An Incomplete Project: Graphic Adaptations of Moby-Dick and the Ethics of Response.”

Parables of Care can be downloaded as a PDF file, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, from

If you work in a library, hospital, GP practice or care home- or care for someone with dementia in the UK, you can order a free copy of Parables of Care here: in the UK you can request printed copies at no cost here.

 

Parables of Care Panel at Graphic Medicine 2019 Conference, Brighton, UK

 

We are pleased to (slightly belatedly) announce on this blog that our multidisciplinary panel discussing Parables of Care will feature in the programme of the Graphic Medicine 2019 international conference in Brighton, UK.

Our panel will feature team members from the UK and Canada components of the Parables of Care project.

The title of the conference this year is Queerying Graphic Medicine – Paradigms, Power and Practices and will take place 11-13 July 2019 in Brighton, UK.

Prices:

Early Bird Registration – £100 (available until 1st June 2019)

Full Price Registration – £125 (from 2nd June 2019)

Student Registration – £60

Parables of Care Present at Performing and Picturing Patienthood: Exploring Graphic Illness Narratives

The Parables of Care project has been present at ‘Performing and Picturing Patienthood: Exploring Graphic Illness Narratives‘, a symposium convened by Dr John Miers (Kingston Schoool of Art) to mark the end of his Researcher in the Archives residency in University of the Arts London’s Archives and Special Collections Centre at London College of Communication.

Last night (Thursday 4 April 2019),  as Parables of Care PI, I attended the opening session, handing out physical copies of the comic and live-tweeting using the event’s #pppatienthood hashtag.

Today (Friday 5 April 2019), Parables of  Care artist Dr Simon Grennan  (University of Chester) will participate in the closing session scheduled at 5.15 pm and titled “Performing on the Page”, in which John Miers  will be in conversation with Simon.

According to the programme, “through talks, discussions and workshops”, the symposium taking place at the London College of Communication is guided by the following questions:

“How does producing graphic autobiography help artists to express and process experiences of illness? How is the tension between fictionalisation and disclosure navigated in this process? To what extent do such narratives reinforce stereotypical models of living with, or treating, illness?

The Picturing and Performing Patienthood symposium aims to explore issues raised by this project through the perspective of artists whose work communicates experiences of chronic disease, scholars of graphic narrative, healthcare professionals, and publishers who have helped to establish graphic illness memoirs as a significant branch of contemporary life writing. The event will comprise a rich and varied mixture of panel discussions, research papers, exhibitions and practical workshops.”

More information about the event can be found here.

Parables of Care can be downloaded as a PDF file, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, from

If you live in the UK you can request printed copies at no cost here.

Comics, Affect, and Immediacy: Presentation at the West North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing

Words by Peter Wilkins

Marie-Pier Caron and Ruhina Rana of the Bachelor of Science, Nursing program, Douglas College, and their poster at the West North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing conference, Edmonton Alberta, February 20-22, 2019.

Marie-Pier Caron and Ruhina Rana of the Bachelor of Science, Nursing program, Douglas College, and their poster at the West North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing conference, Edmonton Alberta, February 20-22, 2019.

 

Marie-Pier Caron and Ruhina Rana of the Bachelor of Science, Nursing program at Douglas College, Vancouver, did a poster presentation on I Know How This Ends (a companion comic to City/Chester/Douglas’s Parables of Care) at the West North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing conference in Edmonton Alberta on February 20-22, 2019.

The theme of the conference was Rejuvenating Nursing Education through Relational Practice.

The topic of the poster was Graphic Medicine as a Relational Practice in Dementia Care: Comics, Affect, and Immediacy. It was one of three posters relating the arts to nursing care. The others were on music therapy and dementia care and arts-based instructional strategies in mobile learning.

The poster featured artwork by Melissa Martins from the formational stage of I Know How This Ends and attracted a lot of attention. Copies of Parables of Care were also on hand.

Visitors to the poster were impressed with the possibilities of using comics as an icebreaker for discussing dementia in a classroom setting because of the visceral power of the medium. Most suggested that they would not have thought of using comics as an educational tool.

Marie and Ruhina were surprised to discover some pushback from nurses on the term “Graphic Medicine.” Apparently, nurses in Canada have spent a lot of time establishing nursing as its own discipline and associate “medicine” specifically with doctors. This distinction might be useful to explore in future discussions of the sub-discipline. Perhaps “graphic healthcare” might be a more amenable term.

Marie and Ruhina wished they had a QR code to connect their audience with further information about the Parables of Care/ I Know How This Ends project. That is another thing to consider for the future.

Poster presentations are not always easy in big, crowded conferences as they are often squeezed into breaks between sessions and have to vie for attendees’ attention with coffee and snacks. Nevertheless, Marie and Ruhina were thrilled with the attention the poster received. It inspired them to continue with the project and develop it further.

Last year, Dr Peter Wilkins and Marie-Pier Caron of Douglas College did a presentation on the Parables of Care project at the Western Canada Health Science Educators conference in Parksville, British Columbia, May 17-18 2018.

 

For more information about the Canadian part of the Parables of Care project and I Know How This Ends,  please contact Dr Peter Wilkins, wilkinsp at douglascollege.ca.


Parables of Care can be downloaded as a PDF file, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, from

If you live in the UK you can request printed copies at no cost here.

Parabeln der Pflege in University of Chester Forum Magazine

 

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Following our release of the German version of Parables of Care on 24 January 2019, The University of Chester Forum Magazine published a one-page piece about it, on page number 8, with the title “Creative responses to dementia care now available in German” [PDF].

The text reads:

 

A BOOK representing creative responsesto dementia care, through carers’ eyes and produced in a new visual format by a collaboration including an academic from the University of Chester, is now available in Germany. Parables of Care. Creative Responses to Dementia Care, As Told by Carers is a research-based comic book, originally published in English in October 2017.

It has now been released in German, translated by Dr Andrea Hacker, from the Open Science Team at the University of Bern. The short comic book was created by Dr Simon Grennan, from the Department of Art and Design, University of Chester; Dr Ernesto Priego, from the Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London and Dr Peter Wilkins from Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada.

The book includes 14 informative and touching stories, drawn by Simon with Christopher Sperandio, which were adapted by more than 100 case studies of real-life dementia care situations described by a range of carers. These case studies in which the comic book is based are available at http://carenshare.city.ac.uk/

The small international team looked to expand the accessibility of this archive of carers’ stories and found that by creating short graphic art stories they could portray the emotion conveyed in these situations. Each story involves only four panels and is just one page long. Unlike clinical descriptions, this form enhances the affective aspects of each story, putting the reader at the centre of situations that are often on the verge of incomprehensibility, but which are all resolved. In this respect, each story is universalised and becomes a parable. The book is available open access to dementia carers and the general public as part of ongoing engagement, training and development programmes at City, University of London, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and The Faculty of Health Sciences at Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada Vancouver.

Download Parables of Care (original English version) from City Research Online,City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

Download Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [Parables of Care German version] from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

For more information visit:
https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/

Eine neue Übersetzung von Parables of Care macht den Comic über kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege einem deutschsprachigen Publikum zugänglich

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

[This announcement is available in English here]

Die englische Originalversion von Parables of Care kann hier vom City Research Online, City, University of London heruntergeladen werden: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [die deutsche Übersetzung von Parables of Care] kann hier vom City Research Online, City, University of London heruntergeladen werden: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

Das Werk kann auch vom Repositorium ChesterRep der University of Chester heruntergeladen werden: https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/621804

Parables of Care. Creative Responses to Dementia Care, As Told by Carers ist ein auf Forschung basiertes Comicbuch das ursprünglich im Oktober 2017 auf Englisch veröffentlicht wurde.

Parables of Care erschien nun auf Deutsch, übersetzt von Dr. Andrea Hacker (Universität Bern, Schweiz).

Zum Prozess der Übersetzung meinte Dr. Hacker:

“Ich wollte Parables of Care nicht nur mit meiner Familie und den wunderbaren Pflegern die uns helfen teilen, sondern mit einem breiteren, deutschsprachigen Publikum: Hunderttausende Familien auf dieser Welt sind von Alzheimer und/oder Demenz betroffen, egal in welchem Sprachraum. Wenn wir unsere erfolgreichen Herangehensweisen so weit wie möglich zugänglich machen, dann haben alle – Patienten oder Familien – die Chance das Beste aus diesen Krankheiten zu machen.”

[Unser Interview mit Andrea finden Sie hier].

Das Comicbuch wurde von Dr. Simon Grennan vom Department of Art and Design, University of Chester, UK; Dr Ernesto Priego, vom Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London, UK und Dr Peter Wilkins vom Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada geschaffen.

Das kompakte Comicbuch enthält 14 informative und bewegende Geschichten, die von Simon Grennan mit Christopher Sperandio gezeichnet wurden. Diese Geschichten wurden aus mehr als 100 Fallstudien zu Situationen in der Demenzpflege adaptiert, wie sie von Pflegenden geschildert wurden. Diese Fallstudien finden Sie unter http://carenshare.city.ac.uk/

Das kleine internationale Team wollte den Zugang zu den gesammelten Erfahrungsberichten von Pflegenden erweitern und fand dass kurze, grafische Erzählungen die starke Emotionalität solcher Situationen ideal schildern können. Jede Geschichte besteht aus lediglich vier Panels und ist nur eine Seite lang.

Im Unterschied zu klinischen Beschreibungen, unterstreicht diese Art der Darstellung die emotionalen Aspekte der jeweiligen Geschichte, was die LeserInnen in Situationen transportiert, die zwar oft an das Unverständliche grenzen, jedoch gelöst werden können. Auf diese Art wird jede Geschichte verallgemeinert und zur Parabel.

Das Buch ist im Open Access zugänglich für Demenzpflegende und ein allgemeinenes Publikum. Dies ist Teil laufender Engagement-, Trainings- und Entwicklungsprogramme am City College der Universität London, am Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust und der Faculty of Health Sciences at Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada.

Zur Übersetzerin

Dr Andrea Hacker ist Lektorin, Übersetzerin und Open Access Spezialistin, die an der Universität Bern arbeitet. Nach Aufenthalten in den USA, Russland, Irland und Deutschland lebt sie heute in der Schweiz. Während ihres Studiums an der Universität Kalifornien Los Angeles wurde sie von Michael Henry Heim in literarischer Übersetzung betreut.

Download von Parables of Care (Englische Originalversion) von City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

Download von  Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [Parables of Care auf Deutsch] von City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

Interview mit Andrea Hacker zu ihrer Übersetzung von Parables of Care: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/2019/01/24/parabeln-der-pflege-a-qa-with-parables-of-care-translator-andrea-hacker/

Weitere Informationen finden sie hier: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/

Für Presseanfragen kontaktieren Sie bitte: John Stevenson, Senior Communications Officer, City, University of London

Parabeln der Pflege: A Q&A with Parables of Care Translator Andrea Hacker

Dr Andrea Hacker, University of Bern

Dr Andrea Hacker, University of Bern

 

It is always challenging to find the right tone in emotional dialogue, to be able to give different characters their own voice (rather than your own) – I tried to channel the voices of our German carers and of course my loved ones.”

Dr Andrea Hacker is an editor, translator and open science professional and lives in Switzerland where she works at the University of Bern. Andrea has previously lived and worked in the US, Russia, Ireland and Germany. She was mentored in literary translation during her graduate studies at UCLA by Michael Henry Heim.

She translated Parables of Care into German. I asked Andrea some questions related to Parables of Care.

How did you come across Parables of Care?

I think on Twitter (by you, actually) after I tweeted about the heartbreak of watching a loved one succumb to the illness and my ineptness of dealing with it.

What were your first impresisons of the comic?

I loved it. It offers such kind and simple ways of defusing situations that can occur at any moment with a loved one suffering from this dreadful disease. The closer you are to a person, the more difficult it becomes to accept, understand and appropriately react to the change in behaviour and character that can occur. This little book showed me that there are gentle, simple ways of adjusting. It gave me hope.

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care,
translated by Dr Andrea Hacker

How did the idea of translating Parables of Care into German came about?

Due to my family background, I live a bi-lingual life, German and English. We are grappling with dementia in our German-speaking branch of the family.

When I read it, I wanted to share Parables of Care not only with them and the wonderful carers that help us but with a wider German-speaking audience: Alzheimer, dementia – these affect hundreds of thousands of families in the world regardless of language. Widely sharing our experiences of what works will give everyone a chance to make the best of the affliction – patients and families alike.

Parabeln der Pflege, page 2, translation by Andrea Hacker

Parabeln der Pflege, page 2, translation by Andrea Hacker

For the translation, what did you have to take into account; what was the most challenging?

The translation was relatively straight forward – there is not much culturally specific content in the stories, the images or the text that requires adjustment or explanation.

It is always challenging to find the right tone in emotional dialogue, to be able to give different characters their own voice (rather than your own) – I tried to channel the voices of our German carers and of course my loved ones.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Yes: please create more, translate more, share more. When dementia entered our family we were utterly unprepared for it. Members of our family and the community where my family lives met the diagnosis with disbelief, pity, shame, fear, helplessness, or plain old prejudice.

It is hard enough to find a way of dealing with this illness; fighting against ignorance – which much of the reactions are based on – should not have to be added to the lot. We need to fix that. If you got more to translate, count me in!

Download Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [Parables of Care German version] from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

Download Parables of Care (original English version) from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

German translation media release: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/2019/01/24/parabeln-der-flege-parables-of-care-german-translation-release/

Parabeln der Pflege: new translation of Parables of Care makes comic about dementia care available to German-speaking audiences

Media Release

 

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Cover of the German version of Parables of Care

Thursday, 24 January 2019

 

A new translation of Parables of Care makes comic about creative responses to dementia care available to German-speaking audiences

 

Download Parables of Care (original English version) from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

Download Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [Parables of Care German version] from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

It is also available to download from ChesterRep, University of Chester: https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/621804

Parables of Care. Creative Responses to Dementia Care, As Told by Carers is a research-based comic book originally published in English in October 2017.

Parables of Care has now been released in German translation, translated by Dr Andrea Hacker, from the University of Bern, Switzerland.

About working on the German translation, Dr Hacker said:

“I wanted to share Parables of Care not only with my family and the wonderful carers that help us but with a wider German-speaking audience: Alzheimer, dementia – these affect hundreds of thousands of families in the world regardless of language. Widely sharing our experiences of what works will give everyone a chance to make the best of the affliction – patients and families alike.”

[Read our Q&A with Andrea here].

The comic book was created by Dr Simon Grennan, from the Department of Art and Design, University of Chester, UK; Dr Ernesto Priego, from the Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London, UK; and Dr Peter Wilkins from Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada.

The short comic book includes 14 informative and touching stories, drawn by Simon Grennan with Christopher Sperandio, which were adapted from more than 100 case studies of real-life dementia care situations described by a range of carers. These case studies are available at http://carenshare.city.ac.uk/

The small international team looked to expand the accessibility of this archive of carers’ stories and found that by creating short graphic art stories they could portray the emotional power of  these situations. Each story is only four panels and just one page long.

Unlike clinical descriptions, this form enhances the affective aspects of each story, putting the reader at the centre of situations that often verge on incomprehensibility, but which are all resolved. In this respect, each story is universalised and becomes a parable.

The book is available open access to dementia carers and the general public as part of ongoing engagement, training and development programmes at City, University of London, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and The Faculty of Health Sciences at Douglas College, Vancouver, Canada.

About the Translator

Dr Andrea Hacker is an editor, translator and open science professional who lives in Switzerland where she works at the University of Bern. She has previously lived and worked in the US, Russia, Ireland and Germany. She was mentored in literary translation during her graduate studies at UCLA by Michael Henry Heim.

Download Parables of Care (original English version) from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18245/

Download Parabeln der Pflege. Kreative Reaktionen in der Demenzpflege, von Pflegenden erzählt [Parables of Care German version] from City Research Online, City, University of London: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21252/

Q&A with Andrea Hacker on her Parables of Care translation: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/2019/01/24/parabeln-der-pflege-a-qa-with-parables-of-care-translator-andrea-hacker/

For more information, please visit: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofcare/

Press enquiries contact: John Stevenson, Senior Communications Officer, City, University of London