How we Work
Arts and Minds is the working title of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation for the Arts and Mental Health. It was set up to promote and support access to all forms of the arts for mental health service users, learning disabled people and offenders many of whom have mental health issues and some of whom have learning disabilities.
There is a growing body of evidence that having access to and participating in the arts is good for people's well-being including their mental well-being.
The Department of Health and Arts Council recently published a report called 'A Prospectus for Arts and Health' which provided many references and much evidence. It also said there is much good practice in many parts of the country.
A research report published in July 07 draws together and re-affirms much of the evidence. Because of their impact on individual well-being, it is increasingly recognised that the arts need to be offered as a preventative intervention as well as a treatment option.
Arts and Minds covers Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Although relatively new, it 'inherited' the portfolio of the Millennium Arts Project, a pioneering arts project established under the auspices of the Friends of Fulbourn Hospital and the Community which has successfully run a number of arts projects in southern Cambridgeshire since 2000. These projects have included painting, story-telling, textiles, dance, pottery and garden development and design and all have been very well received and appreciated by the users themselves and their informal carers. Arts and Mind’s priority is to spread these activities and the benefits they bring to all services (mental health, learning disability and offender), for all ages (children, adults and older people), throughout Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. In the last few months we have established projects in Peterborough and Ely as well as Cambridge, and other projects are being planned for Ely, Wisbech, Huntingdon, and Cambourne.
Arts and Minds is trying to put pressure on local statutory services to raise their awareness of the value of increased access to the arts and hopes that in the fullness of time care packages for people with enduring conditions will include payments for arts interventions as they do for drugs and other clinical interventions. However, given the local financial scenario it is likely that charitable sources are going to be the most fruitful source of support for the near future.
The process of setting up a project normally starts with a conversation between the local service manager and one of the Arts and Mind’s trustees to scope what is required and what might be offered. Projects normally involve 8 – 10 users and sometimes informal carers over a period of 10 – 12 weeks. The groups are assessed as having reasonably similar needs and interests and the capacity to respond to the arts intervention offered. There would then be a discussion about how the very modest costs of the project might be met, including grant application (normally joint), donation (eg from a local Friends group) or, exceptionally, from mainstream statutory funds. Once these issues are resolved, the project proceeds as quickly as possible and is carefully evaluated as the project proceeds and at its conclusion. Local artists are normally recruited to cut down on travel and time costs, and a volunteer normally works with the artist to provide additional support. In all cases, Arts and Minds workers are CRB checked, and they work under the supervision of staff employed in the service where the arts intervention is being offered.