The ALLIANCE and the Scottish Ballet Health collaboration review 2022

Scottish Ballet and the ALLIANCE are enhancing the developments of dance health as an integrative social prescribing model for Scotland.

The creative partnership between Scottish Ballet’s (SB) SB Health and the Health and Social Care Alliance (the ALLIANCE) is maximizing the collaborative experiences in support of the Health Partnerships project, funded by a grant from The R S Macdonald Charitable Trust.

The aim of our partnership is developing a dance health social prescribing model for Scotland building on the experiences and learning with the social prescribing Community Link Workers Programme. Delivering strategic interventions through creating a pathway for SB Health initiatives to explore, develop and implement dance health social prescribing for more diverse mainstream health and social care settings, thus supporting a culture change in the health and arts sectors.

Dance engages participants’ mind and body and creates an enjoyable social environment that emphasises the intrinsic benefits of dancing, rather than a medical model of care, whilst having fun.

Three SB Health ballet programmes have been developed and implemented with people living with or experiencing early signs of neurological conditions. These are enabling and facilitating bespoke person centered dance tailored to participants’ needs:

• Time To Dance® is for people living with dementia and their families and carers
• Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland
• Elevate® for people living with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their carers

The core aim of the classes is for participants to explore and enhance their range of physical, artistic and creative possibilities that are still very much open to them.

Direct primary outcomes span a range of improvements in cardiovascular fitness, muscular, strength, balance, flexibility, coordination, and gait; with secondary benefits in areas such as improved sleep and an array of benefits to mental and emotional wellbeing such as building self-confidence, networks and communities.

The classes were shortlisted for the ALLIANCE’s Self-Management Awards 2022 and in the final shortlist for the Luminate 10^th Anniversary Awards.

Ours plans include raising awareness of dance health as an accessible social prescribing model with options open to current and prospective participants, online or in person. To support strategic transformational change in building sustainable classes we will, initially, focus on three areas of Scotland covering urban, rural and island health and social care areas that currently host dance health programmes.

We will work collaboratively to co-produce and tailor our approaches, with different challenges and needs at the forefront of decision making and implementation which will be demonstrated through Strategic Pathways aiming for ease of the participant to engage with the classes.  Embedding dance health as an accessible and sustainable social prescribing model across Scotland is at the forefront of our ongoing project planning and implementation.

This is an exciting initiative, and we welcome your collaboration, engagement and participation. For further information contact:

hannah.mcilveen@scottishballet.co.uk
mandy.andrew@alliance-scotland.org.uk

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