Co-Production of Arts Therapies Provision: A Grounded Theory Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Co-Production of Arts Therapies Provision: A Grounded Theory Study
IRAS ID
346685
Contact name
Catherine Purcell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Office, Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 4 months, 28 days
Research summary
Summary of Research:
This research project aims to develop a theory of how organisations that provide arts therapies can be co-produced: how can these be directed, designed, and delivered with and by the people these organisations aim to support?Co-production is one potential avenue for building more inclusive and equitable provision. Co-production is beginning to attract scholarly attention in arts therapies, including Pickard (2020), Melhuish, Grady & Holland (2019), Nelligan, Hayes & McCaffrey (2020), Springham & Xenophantes (2021), and Myerscough and Williams (2022). Co-production features prominently in Welsh Government (2016, p. 3) literature on Prudent Healthcare. NHS England (2022) in collaboration with the Department for Health and Social Care also refer to co-production.
The arts therapies include art (psycho)therapy, dance movement psychotherapy, dramatherapy, and music therapy.
Adults involved with an arts therapies setting which uses co-production practices are eligible to take part. Participants can be service users, service providers, or work in partnership with the service (for example as advocates).
This research will take place at locations where the arts therapies setting normally operates. The researcher will join in with and observe participants in their day-to-date activity in the setting. They will talk to research participants about what they notice during observations. A group of participants will also spend time playing music with the researcher, providing an example of creative co-production in action. The data collection period is planned to finish in September 2025. (The researcher may contact participants in the following months to clarify details. Write up is planned to finish in June 2026.)
Summary of Results:
The research identified the following interlinking concepts and processes which play a part in co-production:
* Meaning-laden-meaning-less: Meaning-laden-meaning-less is about how people define and or use the word co-production. Sometimes people use the word co-production in very broad ways. Other times people are very specific about what they mean when they say "co-production". This can make it hard to know what people mean.
* Complexity: Complexity is a way of talking about how things link to and cause one another. It means that things connect and interact in lots of different ways, and not in a set order. Co-production is complex. And co-production happens in complex settings.
* Communities\settings: Communities\settings is about how the community and setting mean different things but overlap more or less in different situations. Community is about the people a therapy setting aims to support. Setting is where the therapy is organised, by who, and how.
* Intrinsic-challenging: Intrinsic-challenging is about how some arts therapies practices and some co-production practices overlap. But other co-production practices and arts therapies practices challenge each other. In a sense, this context is about how co-production and arts therapies relate to each other.
* Three intertwined temporal processes - getting on the same page, projecting into the future, and living legacy.
o Getting on the same page: Getting on the same page is about finding shared reference points. These might be similar things we have experienced, shared resources, things we know, or a structure we agree to use together.
o Projecting into the future: Projecting into the future involves a person imagining what they want to happen. This can contribute to getting on the same page. For example, people need to think about what they want to give another person good instructions what to do to contribute to this.
o Living legacy describes how the past continues to shape the present and future.
* Opening-boundarying: Opening-boundarying is about being honest and having appropriate boundaries. It includes being open about boundaries.
Boundaries - and being open - can be about:
o Relationships;
o Space and place;
o Organisation;
o Safety;
o Role
* Empowering-burdening: Empowering-Burdening is about how processes through which people can enact power require work. The burden of work can then limit people from using their power.
* Comforting-discomforting: Co-production involves exploring challenging topics like fairness and inequality. These are uncomfortable to explore. Comforting-discomforting is about the process of trying to help everyone feel comfortable enough to work together. At the same time, it names how co-production makes us uncomfortable.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
25/WA/0007
Date of REC Opinion
14 Feb 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion