This is the first published book in the UK that brings together a range of key qualitative research studies supporting the assertion that involvement in participatory arts can be specifically beneficial to people with a variety of mental health difficulties.
There is growing interest internationally in the contributions which the creative arts can make to wellbeing and health in both healthcare and community settings. A timely addition to the field, this book discusses the role the creative arts have in addressing some of the most pressing public health challenges faced today. Providing an evidence-base and recommendations for a wide audience, this is an essential resource for anyone involved with this increasingly important component of public health practice.
This open access book offers an overview of the beautiful, powerful, and dynamic array of opportunities to promote health through the arts from theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and critical perspectives. This is the first-known text to connect the disparate inter-disciplinary literatures into a coherent volume for health promotion practitioners, researchers, and teachers. It provides a one-stop depository for using the arts as tools for health promotion in many settings and as bridges across communities, cultures, and sectors. The diverse applications of the arts in health promotion transcend the multiple contexts within which health is created, i.e., individual, community, and societal levels, and has a number of potential health, aesthetic, and social outcomes. Topics covered within the chapters include: Exploring the Potential of the Arts to Promote Health and Social Justice Drawing as a Salutogenic Therapy Aid for Grieving Adolescents in Botswana Community Theater for Health Promotion in Japan From Arts to Action: Project SHINE as a Case Study of Engaging Youth in Efforts to Develop Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Strategies in Rural Tanzania and India Movimiento Ventana: An Alternative Proposal to Mental Health in Nicaragua Using Art to Bridge Research and Policy: An Initiative of the United States National Academy of Medicine Arts and Health Promotion is an innovative and engaging resource for a broad audience including practitioners, researchers, university instructors, and artists. It is an important text for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, particularly in program planning, research methods (especially qualitative methodology), community health, and applied art classes. The book also is useful for professional development among current health promotion practitioners, community nurses, community psychologists, public health professionals, and social workers.
Begins with a valuable overview of the research challenge facing advocates of arts and health work and is followed by two qualitative evaluations of local arts and health initiatives in different parts of the UK. Together these papers show the kind of qualitative approach that has generally been adopted in evaluating community arts for health initiatives - and signal the need perhaps for larger scale, longer-term and more controlled studies. A review follows and focuses on dance therapy and Tai Chi for people affected by arthritis offers a possible goal for research in arts and health. The final article highlights the role of creative and arts-based activities in promoting more happiness in schools. Originally published as Health Education (2005, Vol.105, No.5)
Drawing on new paradigms and evidence-based discoveries in neuroscience, narrative psychology, and creativity theory, Creative Arts in Counseling and Mental Health by Philip Neilsen, Robert King, and Felicity Baker explores the beneficial role of expressive arts within a recovery perspective. A framework of practice principles for the visual arts, creative writing, music, drama, dance, and digital storytelling is addressed across a number of settings and populations, providing readers with an accessible overview of techniques taught in counseling programs in the U.S. and abroad.
This book equips any quantitative researcher, at any level, who finds they need to use qualitative methods, with the necessary theoretical and practical skills they need to leverage their quantitative background into successful qualitative research.
This timely book explores what it is like to live in an aged care home: the expectations that new residents and their families enter with, their relationships with fellow residents and formal caregivers, and how they approach, in different ways, the reality that this place is where they will die. Creative Arts-Based Research in Aged Care draws on an immersive semi-longitudinal four-year study and purposely privileges the voices and perspective of older residents. Using creative arts-based qualitative research methods, specifically participatory photography and research poetry, it demonstrates the experience of contemporary aged care from the perspective of those who matter most: older residents. Divided into three parts covering entering residential aged care, daily life in aged care and dying in aged care, the book stimulates debate and discussion about current practice, and the future of aged care in the context of rapid population ageing and care automation. It is essential reading for all scholars and students working in the fields of gerontology, social work, psychology, design, and nursing, particularly those tasked with redesigning aged care in the twenty-first century.
Designed to be used as both a class text and a resource for researchers and practitioners, Arts Based Research provides a framework for those who seek to broaden the domain of qualitative inquiry in the social sciences by incorporating the arts as forms that represent human knowing.
This book brings together leading UK researchers in the field of arts and health, including creative arts therapies. The chapters are based on presentations originally given at a UK seminar series on scholarship and research on connections between the creative arts, health and wellbeing, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It will be of interest to anyone practising or researching arts and health, in both hospitals and community settings. Because of the nature of the work, the volume is cross-disciplinary in theory and multi-disciplinary in practice. As such, it will appeal to a cross-section of practitioners and thinkers. Research in the field of arts, health and wellbeing has developed considerably in recent years, and in the dialogue of this book some of the big questions for the agenda are addressed.
This book provides an overview of the innovative, arts-based research method of body mapping and offers a snapshot of the field. The review of body mapping projects by Boydell et al. confirms the potential research and therapeutic benefits associated with body mapping. The book describes a series of body mapping research projects that focus on populations marginalised by disability, mental health status, and other vulnerable identities. Chapters focus on summarising the current state of the art and its application with marginalised groups; analytic strategies for body mapping; highlighting body mapping as a creation and a dissemination process; emerging body mapping techniques including web-based, virtual reality, and wearable technology applications; and measuring the impact of body maps on planning, practice, and behaviour. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and beyond. Offering innovative ways of engaging in body mapping research, which result in real-world impact, this book is an essential resource for postgraduate students and researchers.