Access
To achieve this, inclusive and innovative approaches, as well as consistent and committed investment is needed. On this page, our expert contributors and partner organisations offer their experiences of using digital and hybrid innovations to engage diverse audiences, as well as sharing their thoughts on other support that is needed to make arts in health partnerships as inclusive as they can be.
Insight from experience
Creativity done together has tremendous benefits
In this video Sam Batley, an artist and ex-service user reflects on the role of art in recovery. Reflecting on his work with men living in Damian John Kelly House, a recovery living centre in Liverpool, Sam shares the benefits of employing creativity from supporting the development of community and a sense of belonging to improved self-esteem.
Creating Access Routes
Georgina Aasgaard, cellist and music and health practitioner, offers insights from her extensive experience. She highlights the crucial role that arts practitioners can play in building trust with communities and creating routes to access arts in health interventions.
Insight from experience
Creating Access Routes
In this video, Georgina Aasgaard, cellist and music and health practitioner, offers insights from her extensive experience. She highlights the crucial role that arts practitioners can play in building trust with communities and creating routes to access arts in health interventions.
'Creativity done together has tremendous benefits'
Sam Batley, an artist and ex-service user, reflects on the role of art in recovery as both a facilitator and as a former participant. He has used a range of creative mediums including photography and filmmaking with men living in Damian John Kelly House: a recovery living centre in Liverpool. Sam shares the benefits of employing creativity in this context, from supporting the development of community and a sense of belonging to improved self-esteem. He also emphasises the importance of lived experience expertise for initiatives to be engaging and accessible for vulnerable people and hard-to-reach populations.
Sam Batley: Video Diary
Listen to Sam’s reflections on how creative expression offers real and unique opportunities for collaboration with service users based on his experiences in Liverpool.
examples & evidence
In 2021, FACT held a series of online workshops specially designed for arts educators and practitioners with an interest in engagement projects that work with older people, or individuals that are isolated or vulnerable. Sessions were led by Chris Rolls (Senior Project Manager at 64 Million Artists), Lara Ratnaraja (Cultural Consultant specialising in diversity, innovation, leadership) and Sarah Bailey (Arts Educator and Facilitator).
Participatory Theatre: Top Tips for Online Facilitation
A presentation from Collective Encounters (2020) offering some useful tips to participatory theatre makers and facilitators who are delivering online. It includes a focus on digital inclusion, considerations for making sessions accessible and how to create a welcoming online space.
In 2021, Open Eye Gallery hosted a series of events around the question of ‘Who’s Left Behind?’ including, an online webinar on the voice of the social care sector and work with older communities in the wake of the global pandemic. This panel discussion features photographer Tadhg Devlin, staff from Community Integrated Care, and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in association with Liverpool SURF group.
Shared Reading at Home
During the Covid-19 pandemic, The Reader trialled a whole new way of working in order to bring the joy of literature into everyone’s home. Activities included live online readings of poetry and prose shared via social media and available on demand, shared reading by phone and the Sunday Reading Challenge: a poem for all the family to share and learn off by heart.
