Arts for Health Partnership, a managed arts programme for older adults accessing healthcare services

Description

The programme takes place in widespread, rural locations including Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, five Day Care Centres: Bantry, Castletownbere, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Skibbereen; four Community Hospitals: Castletownbere, Dunmanway, Schull, Skibbereen, Bantry General Hospital, Care of the Elderly Unit, in community settings and more recently, at home. Managed by Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Arts for Health runs all year round and is delivered by a team of professional artists from different disciplines.
Access to and engagement with the arts in healthcare settings improves the quality of life for individuals in residential care and encourages conversation with the wider community. By being integrated into the culture of the care setting, the Arts for Health programme allows the ideas and individual creative interests of the participants to be nurtured, developed and implemented over time.
The Community Hospital Arts Programme focuses on consistent weekly delivery and is tailored to the participant’s creative needs. It is structured around a weekly group workshop, remote projects, and regular one to one support to encourage and develop individual creative ideas. The content of the workshops evolve and change responding to the exchange between the artist and the participant. Occasionally, the artists on the team work collaboratively to deliver projects, using themes and connecting the participants with the wider community.
Creative Carers is a community-based strand of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme in West Cork, initiated in 2022. The programme creates opportunities to engage with the arts, for and with family carers. The diverse and inclusive programme, delivered by professional artists from various disciplines, takes place at carers’ homes, in arts spaces, and in community settings across the region.
The programme welcomes family carers who care for an older adult, or who are themselves an older adult, and aims for participants to benefit from a blend of arts and health objectives including access to the arts and artists practice, peer support, community network building, and creative engagement.
Creative Carers is delivered in many different forms. This is to ensure that family carers have as many access points into the programme as possible. All strands are delivered by artists with a high level of expertise working in an arts and health context and are supported by a healthcare partner. Most of our Healthcare partners are Community Link Workers, sometimes day care coordinators or hospital nursing staff depending on the location or the community we are working with.
“Myself and my father (Ted) absolutely loved the artist’s weekly visits. It was a beautiful journey of music, memories and swapping of stories… It also brought me out of the humdrum of caring into a lovely space of connection.” “Ian is so happy after his music session and the joy it brings into our home is immeasurable so long may this programme continue in West Cork.” – Participants at Home

Aim of Initiative

To provide high quality arts and creative experience for older people in health care setting in West Cork, giving voice to people through creativity. Creating an environment where participants can continue personal development as they age.

Who is it aimed at

People accessing day care, community hospitals and at-home care

3 Steps critical to success

1. Partnership structure, which strengthens and embeds the programme
2. Buy in of medical staff, at all levels, from admin to nursing staff. Arts For Health is seen as an integral part of the older person life and is part of their health plan.
3. Training and development of high quality, experienced artists

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. The pandemic was a huge challenge that we managed to overcome quite quickly, changing to a remote & postal project.
2. The affordability of housing in West Cork means that some of our artists cannot afford to stay in West Cork
3. The project is well managed by Uillinn: West cork Arts Centre, but it is a massive task.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Health care settings in West Cork that have a person-centred approach to arts and creativity, and the positive impact of creativity on health and well-being
2. A highly skilled artistic workforce that has experience in platforming the voice of the older person
3. Participants that are supported to express themselves through various artforms, supporting personal development, helping them to feel at home in the health care setting and in the case of the Creative Carers programme, to connect with their carer on an equal footing.