Using visual arts to place lived experience and community wellbeing at the centre

"It’s very much about being playful and experimental, but it’s also allowing people to express themselves and feel heard."

Health and social care integration encourages us to work together, share knowledge, learning and expertise, and find new and innovative ways of doing things for the benefit of our health. In line with this, Art in Healthcare is a third sector organisation with a unique approach to promoting the voice of lived experience, which involves using visual art to support people’s health and wellbeing.

Based in Edinburgh, the charity supports people with disabilities, long term conditions and unpaid carers, as well as those who face mental health challenges and social isolation. By exhibiting their collection in health and social care settings and across their four main programmes, the organisation work with people in their communities, care homes, hospital wards and online with people who find it difficult to leave their homes. Iona McCann, Associate Director (Communities), says that the use of art has been hugely beneficial for people across the community.

“It’s very much about being playful and experimental, but it’s also allowing people to express themselves and feel heard, because a lot of people we work with feel quite hidden and not listened to”, Iona says. “We’ve seen people develop many coping strategies using art, such as mindfulness, using art instead of self harming, and helping people pace their pain management, so it’s all about improving health and wellbeing.”

The organisation’s ‘Caring Spaces’ project, in partnership with local charity VOCAL (Voice of Carers across Lothian) and Carers of East Lothian (CoEL), supports unpaid carers to express themselves artistically, whilst the ‘Taking Art Home’ project ensures that people with long COVID or other long term conditions can participate in online art workshops. The charity also runs the ‘Room for Art’ social prescribing project in five different parts of Edinburgh, with referrals from Community Links Practitioners (CLPs), social care providers and other third sector organisations ensuring the community is supported to manage their health and wellbeing through art.

“We get referrals to support people who have long term conditions, to curb social isolation and loneliness, and to help people get out of the house”, Iona says. “There’s all sorts of different ages and conditions, but despite this, there’s a commonality in that it’s all about curbing mental health challenges more generally through the use of art.”

In line with this, the charity hosts exhibitions throughout the year to showcase the artwork people have made, as well as to ensure the community can come together, express their ideas and have their voices heard. By promoting the voice of lived experience within all of their art programmes, the charity put people at the centre by ensuring they gain a sense of purpose and belonging within the community, whilst being empowered to share their experiences openly and freely.

“It’s that routine of getting out of the house that really benefits people, which is what we hear quite a lot”, Iona adds. “Because we’ve been working with many people long term, we’re really starting to see changes in other areas of their lives, so we’re seeing people with confidence to go to college, or volunteer, or improve their relationships outside the workshop, so it’s really having that long term impact.”

Going forward, Art in Healthcare is looking to build on the success of their programmes by advocating for a more integrated and joined up approach to services across sectors, which would ensure that the people they work with, as well as their families and carers, are provided with a truly holistic offering of care and support whenever they require it.

“To connect our communities, our services need to be really well integrated, and sometimes there are broken links due to cuts and capacity”, Iona says. “There’s no specific fund for social prescribing in Scotland at present, and so a shift in focus to community health would be great, because it really can make a huge difference to people’s lives.”

You can find out more about Art in Healthcare here: https://www.artinhealthcare.org.uk