INTRODUCING ART ACTIVITIES TO CARE HOME SETTINGS: PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES
Combining roles: being a health & social care professional and a researcher
As a registered health and social care professional and postdoctoral researcher I have often combined providing care to care home residents while also conducting research on this care. Much of this research role has involved evaluating the implementation of art-based interventions within care settings including such things as participatory music projects, painting, drawing and craft work. The benefits of these interventions for participants have been found to include the development of relevant skills, enhanced opportunities for activity and relaxation and improved levels of interaction. However, in spite of these common benefits, such activities continue to experience a number of barriers to implementation.In addition to the recent restrictions arising as a result of COVID, more long standing barriers are also apparent. These include inadequate resources and communication deficits within the care setting as well as a lack of clarity on the components of good practice and how it should be implemented.
Involving care home staff in research
Due to the diverse nature of these barriers, measures to overcome them should adopt a similarly eclectic approach. Thus, as staff involvement is often key to the success of interventions of this kind, ongoing communication with the staff team should be a priority. This can be achieved through such things as the provision of project updates, talks on the project to the staff group and the active involvement of care staff during art sessions. In addition, the identification of a link person within the front line staff team who acts as an intermediary between the care setting and the art activity has been found to be effective in facilitating the process of communication. This communication should be a two way process, in which care home staff are consulted on their expectations and aspirations for the art activity. This will allow them to draw upon their own perspectives on the project and the way in which its implementation and impact can be optimised. It will also help to promote person-centred approaches more generally through enhancing the awareness of the life stories, progress and preferences of each participating resident.
A similar two way process of communication should take place with care leaders whose involvement and commitment is likely to be integral to the success of the art intervention by ensuring that adequate time and other resources are made available for its implementation. In order for this leadership commitment to be obtained, efforts should be made to emphasise the benefits of the art activity both for participating residents and for the care home more generally. For example, it can lead to improvements in the care environment and provide tangible evidence of an organisational commitment to person centred care practices.
Impactful research
In addition, broader links can be made beyond the immediate care home setting through the expansion of the art activity to incorporate a wider group of participants and through exhibiting work or public performances. This will help to broaden the impact and reach of the activity and promote public engagement, awareness and fundraising. This recognition that the impact of engagement in creative practice can transcend the immediate setting in which it is located has been reflected the growth of the community arts movement and in the discipline of health humanities and the related concept of mutual recovery. Central to these approaches is the belief that the sharing of creative practice can promote resilience and well-being among professionals, carers and service users and improve access to the wider resources that can promote this well-being.
The achievement of this potentially broad and sustained impact is inevitably compromised by the commonly short-term funding of relevant art interventions and the corresponding lack of statutorily provided alternatives. This is indicative of the persisting marginality of art-based approaches to health and social care provision, in spite of their evident effectiveness in enhancing wellbeing. Further research on the efficacy of these interventions should therefore be conducted if appropriate funding is to be obtained and sustained. Organisations such as ENRICH (Enabling Research in Care Homes) can facilitate this process helping researchers to effectively collaborate with care homes while also enabling care homes to make the most of this research.
About the author
Dr Elaine Argyle is a researcher and a registered health and social care professional.
She has worked on a number of projects relating to the arts and health at the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham and currently works within the social care sector.
