3. Organisations

The organisation supports and facilitates the groups.

Focus of work
- The specific groups, age ranges, geographical location or approach to the work with participants. This can affect what work the organisation, the facilitator and ultimately what the participants could be involved in.

Holistic Approach
Ideally the organisation can see the work they do within a holistic approach – to see the links and symbiotic relationships between the participants, groups, facilitators, their audiences and the art work itself all in the context of its society and culture.

Sharing/Educating with…

…other organisations

Through showcasing what work is happening through promotion of the organisation and art there potentially is a wider dialogue, interest, participation and willingness to support what activities are going on.

Through sharing best practice with other organisation we are developing and strengthening the wider arts and health sphere. Through joint ventures such as the Manifesto work and exploring shared terminology (Parkinson, 2011; 2012) and the work towards a national forum or alliance (London Arts in Health Forum, 2011); as a collective we can raise a coherent and empowered voice.

…wider community

Either through small exhibitions of work such as with the Arts for Life group or through participatory arts projects that involve whole communities (Smith, 2007); through greater involvement and ‘exposure’ to other groups in the community barriers and the sense of ‘difference’ is reduced.

Working with other profession through a shared terminology
Within the community there may be many other professions that facilitators may collaborate with, consult or educate themselves. These could be medical-based roles as occupational therapists, psychiatrists or mental health nurses or other fields such as social workers, community support worker, other teachers and educators etc. Finding a way to communicate with other professions is vital in order for you both to comprehend the work. This can be done through a shared terminology, or adopting theirs to aid communication of ideas (Larson & Perlstein, 2003).

Standards

In other settings this may be looking at external structures of curriculum, academic achievements, scores or assessments. Working with older people and people with mental health issues this approach can be stressful and of detriment to their mental health. Achievement within community arts is perceived more intrinsically, with internal assessment being emphasised.

In community art terms, standards are a little more varied and ambiguous to pin down. Usually they will be linked to the outcomes and expectations of funders and within informal peer-review. There are also expectations of the participants; which may become even more relevant through the personalisation of budgets (MHPF, 2011).

Through qualitative and quantitate data gathering, work can be evaluated and assessed. One of the potential difficulties with community arts is that it can be difficult to criticise the work (White, 2009: 201-206) but through rigorous evaluation and potentially reinvented ‘instrumentalism’ (Knell & Taylor, 2011) we can improve the integrity and methodology of the arts and health field. This I believe is fundamental in order to maintain and develop the work and organisations that have built up over the years.

Funding and Finance

This can be an important deciding factor in what work gets done on what outcomes the funders wish to see in the evaluation of the work.

Although more difficult to justify financially as there are no easy way to measure output, Goulding (2012) talks about the social and intellectual benefits of discussion and exploration of the arts (pp. 223-224)

As within many fields there is a considerably reduction in funding at present, with Arts Council England funds being reduced by 29.6% to £349.4m by 2015 (ACE, 2010), meaning we will be at less funding than over a decade ago of £369.9 m in 2005 (UK Government, 2011). There is, however, funding still out there for organisation and for individual artists to develop their work (Louise, 2011) and the Arts Council is not the only source of funding for the arts.

Limitations

These can be about finance and funding, physical location or what facilities they have. Recognising these limitations can enable facilitators to create projects within their budgets and capabilities, with such restrictions sometimes being a source of inspiration.

Reputation

The reputation of the organisation can be another factor within risk assessments when a project is to be planned out.

Greater Than the Sum

The work that Arts for Recovery does is based within Stockport and now covers various forms of participatory arts with different groups of people and age ranges.

At their premises in Reddish they have a studio to provide art sessions, design room for ICT groups and a gallery space for public engagement and promotion. There are a fantastic range of facilities at their base, however, it is not in a very visible location for an audience for their work.

As part of my preparation for the exhibition I researched into how other organisations approach their work, however, I felt that this would not be of benefit for the members to know themselves at the time as this may increase their anxiety about their level of confidence and what other have done before them. I decided to instead just show them a collection of images of exhibitions in the organisation’s gallery space – showing them how the space can be used in different ways.

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