A CWMBRAN nursing home has made resident’s faces ‘light up’ after starting a project with a local nursery.

Llanyravon Court Care Home teamed up with Llanyravon Nursery and Play Group to host sessions where children go into the care home to engage with residents.

The project, which has been going on for several weeks, aims to get the residents of the home more active by playing games with the children or colouring in.

And for one particular resident - 94-year-old George Batchelor - the project has said to have “changed him completely.”

Activities co-ordinator for Llanyravon Court, Glynis Pope, said she came up with the idea after noticing the 94-year-old didn’t really want to do get involved in any home activities.

Mrs Pope said: “My job is activities and I have to engage with people and also do mental stimulation and stop people getting socially isolated.

“I realised George would not join in any activity whatsoever and just wanted to stay in his room and sleep all day.

“When you let someone do that they will just go downhill. We noticed when we did persuade him to come out and other people’s grandchildren visited he was really animated.

“He doesn’t have any small children and I thought we should get some children in to engage with him, so I went over to the nursery and asked them and they said yes.”

Twice a week the nursery bring over four or five children aged three to go over to the home and paint or play games.

Mrs Pope said that different residents come down to the sessions each week, but George is a regular.

She said: “The difference is just amazing. His face lights up when he sees the children and straight away he’s chatting and smiling.

“It makes me emotional to see it. It’s great for all our residents and gives them and the children something to look forward to.”

Mandy Baker, one of the nursery assistants at Llanyravon Nursery and Play Group, said the children love the visits as much as the residents.

She said: “The children love it. Our intention was to do it for a month with each group, but we’ve had to change the groups every week as they can’t wait to go.

“It’s amazing, we are really lucky to be able to do this.”