Chronic diseases are a worldwide burden, causing 36 million deaths each year (World Health Organization, 2013). They are long-lasting conditions, which require regular treatment, administration, management and care, posing staggering socio-economic burdens on societies and health systems around the world. In this context, the use of arts for individuals suffering from long-term conditions can improve their health and mental health outcomes and their quality of life, and ultimately reduce healthcare costs. While a wide range of creative arts initiatives have been employed to improve the health and mental health outcomes of individuals, little attention has been paid to the training of the facilitators delivering these programmes. Staff training is essential in order for these creative arts programmes to render positive health outcomes and follow ethical guidelines. Thus, the innovative nature of this project relies in the development of a formally recognized training framework for the artists, health staff, care staff, educators, and voluntary organisation staff involved in the development and delivery of Arts-based health promotion and wellbeing programmes. The main motivation for this project is to fulfil this gap in arts therapy education of professionals working with people with long term conditions, and particularly mental health problems. The objective of this project is to develop a new online e-learning package to enable staff to learn new skills to be able to offer patients arts-based therapeutic activities. This will be achieved over 3 years by staff visiting each other's organisations and learning from the individual experiences of all the partners in this field, drawing these together and working on producing the online learning package. The project offers a broader perspective to experience and compare health care systems among different countries and learn how arts techniques are used for the integration and effective treatment of clients with long term conditions. The project will place a strong emphasis on the particular problems of the target group of patients with long-term conditions and its connection with the community, addressing the social stigma they often experience. It will encourage learners and the target group to feel at home with all the media channels of personal expression available and show them how to participate in arts activities. The project will ultimately train staff in techniques to help people with diverse health problems understand how to accept, overcome and take advantage of their way of living. The project will lead to an improvement in the quality of education available to professional care staff and, through them, to the range of services offered to patients. Long-term, it is anticipated that the project will lead to a greater number of staff from health care organisations across the EU using the online package to train themselves in the use of arts as therapy.
Chronic diseases are a worldwide burden, causing 36 million deaths each year (World Health Organization, 2013). They are long-lasting conditions, which require regular treatment, administration, management and care, posing staggering socio-economic burdens on societies and health systems around the world. In this context, the use of arts for individuals suffering from long-term conditions can improve their health and mental health outcomes and their quality of life, and ultimately reduce healthcare costs. Recognising that there is much research and evidence that supports the use of the arts having a profoundly positive effect on peoples mental and physical health and wellbeing, this project aimed to educate and share ideas that would enable professionals, carers and others, to use arts as part of the support they provide to individuals. The objective of this project was to develop a new online e-learning package to enable staff to learn new skills to be able to offer patients arts-based therapeutic activities. This was achieved over 3 years by staff from each partner organisation visiting each other's facilities and service and using learning from the experiences of all the partners in this field, drawing these ideas and content together to produce the online learning package ensuring that that it was also culturally and clinically relevant. A total of 8 organisations took part in the project, all working collaboratively, and bringing together their expertise: a university public health team (evaluation and quality control); an NHS mental health service provider; an organisation working with patients with specific conditions (autism); experts in arts therapy and non-verbal communication; an adult education provider; a regional municipality responsible for healthcare; a national mental health association and an e-learning development expert. The main activity undertaken was the creation of the online e-learning package (available at www.tablo-project.eu). The package brings together e-learning chapters on 14 different health conditions, their characteristics and how they affect a person’s life, together with more than 400 arts-based activities for use by professionals and carers. A search facility allows customisation of the search based upon criteria including age, condition, profession, type of art, etc. Other activities included learning mobilities undertaken by all partners, a dissemination event reaching 197 people and project management meetings. The main project results are the creation of the e-learning package (freely available to anyone) and the increased knowledge of the staff that have participated in the learning mobilities. For those directly involved in the project design and development from all partner organisations there has been an increase in knowledge through experiential learning and appreciation of each other’s health provision and outcomes. In terms of impact, this has led to 24.150 people from Europe and US being reached with information about the project, together with increased cultural awareness, appreciation of the diversity of arts and the direct and indirect benefit of the use of arts as a therapeutic tool. The project will lead to an improvement in the quality of education available to professional care staff and, through them, to the range of services offered to patients. Long-term, it is anticipated that the project will lead to a greater number of staff from health care organisations across the EU using the online package to be confident in the use of therapeutic arts activities.