Dorothy House Dragonfly Project 2025

The Dragonfly Project is a partnership between Dorothy House and Winsley Primary School. The project invites Year 6 pupils to the Hospice to take part in a series of creative arts workshops as an opportunity to learn and understand topics related to palliative illness.

The Dragonfly Project aims to actively destigmatise death, creating a safe and supportive space for children to explore this challenging topic.

Taking place as a series of four workshops over a month, the Dragonfly Project focuses on themes of change and journey, for both the children and patients; as the children move on to secondary school and patients receive a diagnosis which may be difficult to navigate. Another aim of the project is to bring us closer to our local community, demystifying what happens here at Dorothy House. Over the four weeks, the children spent time with Ros and Bethan, our Creative Arts team, making artwork with staff, volunteers and day patients.

The workshops

This year involved talks from our Retail and Fundraising teams, which was very interactive, with a quiz in groups made up of a patient, volunteer or staff member, and two pupils. In week two, everyone designed butterflies on paper ready for week three’s painting project of wooden butterflies (kindly made and donated by the Men’s Shed) and Paul Vinyard, Dorothy House Facilities Manager took the children out to see the grounds and learn about the solar power and how Dorothy House’s facilities are managed.

In week three, the designs were transferred onto the wooden butterflies, and various staff spoke about their roles at the Hospice. This year, Sam Jones, Homelessness Link Worker, talked about his role supporting the travelling community and the homeless which was very impactful. Many of the patients as well as the children did not know about Dorothy House’s involvement in this.

At week four’s session, the children presented their experience of the project to an audience, including patients, parents and year five pupils in preparation for their involvement next year. Certificates were presented to the children, a short film covering the project was viewed and tea and cake was enjoyed by all. Finally, some of the patients gave a short talk about their experience of the Dragonfly project.

Making death a part of life

At Dorothy House, one of our aims is to destigmatise death and to make it a part of life. The Dragonfly project allows us to reach in to our community and address a taboo subject, instigating important conversations about death and dying which may be helpful for families dealing with palliative illness and or bereavement.

Find out more about our work with the community here. If you’ve been inspired by the Dorothy House Dragonfly Project and would like to get involved with the Hospice and our work, click here.