1 December 2008 Good Evening

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Barnardo’s - Creative Arts and Emotional Wellbeing

Summary

Barnardo’s UK undertook a dynamic project to raise the profile, use and status of the creative arts within its organisation, linking this with the emotional wellbeing of its young service users. This work involved children’s services and some family support groups.

Description

The project moved from the starting point that a significant amount of creative arts was taking place in Barnardo’s at a hands-on level, but that Barnardo’s did not explicitly value this way of working or formally recognise it in terms of job descriptions, professional development and recruitment.

During the project Barnardo’s amassed a picture of the benefits the creative arts afforded to the emotional wellbeing of their young people.

They enlisted the help of working artists to work with groups of their young people, and supported the use of creative arts in some family support groups.

They gained a detailed picture of the use of creative arts within their organisation and provided opportunities for staff and service users to share and develop creative arts practice, including small, and large, sharing events.

Outcomes

• A film was produced charting the development of pilot schemes and various hands-on practice sharing events (see the video for extracts).
• The creative arts gained huge momentum and support across the organisation.
• By year two the project had moved from being a pilot scheme to a piece of organisational development.
• A number of internal mechanisms and systems of training, in relation to the creative arts, have been established, which are considered ‘owned’ and ‘alive’.
• Throughout the project children and young people were consulted and given opportunities to shape and inform the work and to give their views on the creative arts.
• Barnardo’s developed an organisational commitment to the use of the creative arts, including an ‘owned’ and ‘alive’ creative arts strategy.
• Staff not only recognise that the creative arts can benefit service users but feel that the use of the creative arts also leads to increased enjoyment of their work.

Themes

• The project was driven by the interests and view of the hands-on staff and service users - from the bottom up.
• The project success was helped by having the championship of Barnardo’s UK Director of Children’s Services, who was supportive from the onset.
• There is qualitative evidence of cost effectiveness in that the increased confidence and skill level of staff means there is now less need for the use of external artists.
• The project has mirrored Barnardo’s approach to the creative arts: that the process can be as important as the product.