Arts in Care

For older people living in care, opportunities to exercise choice or opportunities for different forms of individual expression or self-determination are often limited, both by the routines and surroundings and also by frailty, illness or dependency.

That is why meaningful arts opportunities are of particular benefit to people living in care settings. Through the arts, people express their own thoughts and feelings, working with words, movement, colours, sounds, etc. They exercise choices. No two people are expected to do the same thing and expression can be verbal or non-verbal.

Involvement in the arts also brings you into the present in a way that is valuable in a care setting. Arts programmes enable residents to express the joys and sorrows that have been, and that continue to be, a part of their lives.

Elly McCrea, artist and facilitator on 'Creative Exchanges' put it:
“In a care home for older people there can be little sense of a future. Whereas, when people are engaged with an art form, they are imaginatively engaged, experimenting, looking forward to seeing the process through or to initiating something new. The relationship between the facilitator and the client is not so much about ‘caring for’ or teaching as ‘drawing out,’ in an atmosphere where neither party is sure what the outcome will be. Communication becomes two-way, moving from ‘I know what is best for you’ to ‘what do you think is best for you?’ and relationships can deepen in a way that benefits staff as well as residents.”

Age & Opportunity's programme Creative Exchanges aims to provide more of these processes in care settings by training care staff in the delivery of arts programmes.