Perspective
Alex Cothren and Tully Barnett from Flinders University talked to members of 22 arts and health organisations across the globe for their 2024 report, What does an arts and health organisation do? Across wide-ranging approaches to advancing this work, they discovered commonalities in the challenges facing these organisations. They summarise six key challenges and some of the solutions adopted by arts and health organisations to overcome them.
Case Study
Theatre maker Anna Newell ignites the imagination of our youngest audiences through responsive, multisensory theatre adventures. Since autumn 2023, Anna has been bringing bedside performances to babies and children with complex needs in Dublin hospitals, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Children's Health Ireland.
Reflection
Luci Kershaw is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores health topics and themes, as well as more traditional practice within the area of arts and health. Luci was awarded the artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary in 2024 and has spent her time exploring how to embrace more collaborative approaches to sharing people’s stories through sound and film.
Policy & Strategy
The compassionate communities approach is one in which caregiving, dying, death and grief are shared responsibilities of the whole community, complementing formal services dedicated to end-of-life care by fostering local networks of care and compassion. This position paper, developed as part of the ongoing all-Ireland Compassionate Communities research project, includes the role of the arts in facilitating discussions around emotive topics and helping to develop a compassionate culture.
Policy & Strategy
The PAINT Policy Brief has been co-created by patients, families, researchers, healthcare and arts practitioners with an interest in or personal experience of kidney disease. It addresses the profound impact of haemodialysis on the mental health of patients and advocates for arts activities as a way of managing the emotional challenges and finding meaning and connection during treatment.
Mapping
The aim of the PAINT project was to undertake an international mapping exercise to identify the current provision of arts programmes in kidney centres for people living with kidney disease. The arts activities being offered globally and experiences of renal healthcare staff who provide activities in their units are encouraging in terms of arts in healthcare.
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