Over the last 5 years we have been developing our Arts for Health programmes with key project partners: Ty Canna Mental Health Outreach Services in Cardiff, Ysgol Gyfun Plas Mawr (a Welsh-medium secondary school in Cardiff), the Ukrainian support group in The Vale of Glamorgan, Barry Hospital (Sam Davies Ward older peoples’ acute rehabilitation unit), and The Vale of Glamorgan Mental Health Outreach Team.
Our year-long Murmurations project enabled us to build upon and develop these important Arts for Health partnerships and projects and also helped us to reach new organisations, areas and artists, by running training courses, networking and outreach sessions to reach the most vulnerable and diverse participants in our communities, engaging people through the arts.
We facilitated Creativity for Wellbeing workshops and training for vulnerable people, working with Health and Social Care partners and support teams in Cardiff and The Vale of Glamorgan.
The Health and Wellbeing challenges we aimed to address in our project were dentified with our key partners and co-produced with their service users to create the project, and were adapted during the project as we worked with new partners to ensure that the project was relevant and meeting their challenges. The areas identified included:
Mental Health and Inequalities:
Tackling loneliness and social isolation, working with and connecting vulnerable and under-represented people living in Cardiff and The Vale of Glamorgan.
Physical Health/ Wellbeing:
The need for physical health and wellbeing opportunities, encouraging participants to engage and be more active.
Staff and Volunteers’ Wellbeing:
Training for staff/volunteers’ wellbeing for health and social care partners.
This project was funded by The Arts Council of Wales. We also gained other sources of funding support and commissions from a range of partners including Ty Canna Outreach Service and User Led Resource Service, Cardiff; Vale of Glamorgan Mental Health Team; Cardiff Council; The National Lottery Community Fund; WAHWN; Grangetown Pavilion; Baring Foundation (CAVMH); Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff
Partners
Ty Canna Mental Health Outreach Services in Cardiff
Vale of Glamorgan Mental Health Team
Ukrainian Support Group in The Vale of Glamorgan
Ysgol Gyfun Plas Mawr in Cardiff
Sam Davies Ward, Barry Hospital
Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff
Funders
Ty Canna Outreach Service and User Led Resource Service, Cardiff
Vale of Glamorgan Mental Health Team
Cardiff Council
The National Lottery Community Fund
WAHWN
Grangetown Pavilion
Baring Foundation (CAVMH)
Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff
Impact
We aimed to offer high quality Creativity for Wellbeing sessions to our partners in health and social care by offering semi open groups to their client groups in music, art, creative writing, photography, video, movement, mindfulness.
Participants were referred to us by our partners to help some of their most vulnerable participants to participate in the sessions and provide safeguarding and support.
Our workshops increased wellbeing, self-awareness, self-esteem and self-confidence through expressive arts. We offered a Creativity for Wellbeing programme with each of the partner organisations, creating safe and supportive environments to stimulate positive change for the participants. Creative arts activities encouraged participants to explore and express themselves free of judgement, to have fun and think creatively and to improve their communication and social skills.
We reviewed and assessed this project using reflective review meetings, sharing circles, feedback from the artwork, listening to volunteers and partner organisations and with interviews and filming with participants, professional assessment by the project team, feedback from our partners, network meetings and assessments. Partner organisations want to work with us further.
Learning
In this project we learnt that it is important to:
Connect with and train/share knowledge with the support workers and managers of partner organisations as well as the arts facilitators and volunteers in our person-centred creativity approach.
There is often not enough value given in funding to build new partners for real and mutually supportive partnerships and networks to connect arts/health/wellbeing into the future.
Celebrating the work is important with participants with their friends/ supporters and the wider community.
Legacy
We have built a local and more diverse network of supportive partners linked to the shared aims of creativity for wellbeing. This will mean the project has sustainability, connecting with shared agendas and local programmes.
In a welcoming and supportive environment, and from the feedback from this project, we know that our participants, given a range of creative opportunities and support, will build their recovery, growth and personal development.
We have created a future network of funders, volunteers and community partners.
Project Gallery
