Creating conditions to co-shape personal measures in Arts Therapies
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Creating conditions to co-shape meaningful personalised measures in the arts therapies in statutory community mental health services: Arts-based transformational action research
IRAS ID
322439
Contact name
Emma Maclean
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 4 months, 20 days
Research summary
Outcomes of taking part in the arts therapies within statutory community mental health services are often measured using self-report forms, which ask persons attending to quickly comment on recovery from symptoms, reduction in risk, or improvements in overall well-being. Such easy-to-administer forms are recognised to be good scientific tools and provide services with reliable data. However, they can lack meaningfulness in an ongoing journey with an arts therapist, in which using art or music aims to create a space to think about what can happen between persons. Letting go of some of our more medically informed ways of working invites us to think again about what is meaningful for whom. Looking from a person-centred perspective, perhaps outcomes could become meaningful when they capture ongoing changes in ways of being in therapy, friendships, and communities.
Building on earlier phases, in which a framework for personalised measures was developed in practice, phase three will invite persons who have attended, facilitated, managed, or referred to the arts therapies to become co-researchers. The term co-researcher outlines beliefs that we make meanings together through actions, that there are different ways of knowing and that power should be shared in research. In a series of workshops co-researchers will be invited to use art and music with others to generate actions that could change how therapists and persons attending work together to agree, and regularly review, how the arts therapies help. Arts Therapist co-researchers currently working in the service will be invited to put these into practice and raise questions for the next workshop. These repeated cycles aim to refine the framework and build deeper shared understandings around what therapists and persons attending need to work together to agree and review meaningful changes that can be brought about by taking part in the arts therapies.
REC name
South East Scotland REC 02
REC reference
23/SS/0057
Date of REC Opinion
11 Jul 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Unfavourable Opinion