1. Participants

Who are they?
The starting point of working with any participants is building rapport and getting to know them. In this process you are developing a mutual relationship on respect, trust and the core conditions of genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard (Rogers, 1980). Through initial assessment and discussion with the individual you can get to know what it is they want from the work and as a facilitator you can assess some of these important considerations within this area…

What are their “labels”?
Do these labels hinder or help them?
Rather than asking chronological age, gender, mental health status etc., the more useful question can be what do they perceive themselves to be? And what ‘labels’ has society externally placed them? Through establishing these and whether they help or hinder a person in developing or changing the facilitator can assess what barriers to learning there might be; either perceived, physical, known and acknowledged or blind-spots.

What is their ‘reality’?
This can be their physical, mental or emotional situation. As with everyone to some extent, working with adults with mental health issues and cognitive impairments their ‘reality’ may be different to what others may perceive. Again, knowing this can add the facilitator to develop an approach to work for that person.

What is ‘Change’ to them?
Change can be about achievement. For some people education and learning may not mean the same as development and progress. Particularly working in the ‘here and now’ with adults with dementia, their change or achievements may be on the level of Milestones, such as concentrating on a piece of artwork for 1 hour in order to complete it.

Change is always happening to us all – it could be good or bad, present or elusive with positive or negative connotations. In particular, older people’s lives are in constant change and with it can come loss, which can include loss of employment, status, mental and physical health, mobility and in bereavement of family and friends. (Tschudin, 1999 :62-79)

Everyone’s lives are in constant flux and the main issue with this is perhaps whether change is within our control.

Their Motivations, Ambitions, Expectations.
As with any learner it is important to consider what their motivations are to learning, what they would like to do with their work and what they expect from art, the group and the facilitator. These can affect and influence learning in many ways and it is important to consider each situation as unique and with empathy.

Within geragogy, older people may not come to community arts with positive perceptions to learning.

Also, as opposed to andragogy and many courses, the slant of the learning may be towards work and employability skills. With people within the Third and Fourth Age this is not appropriate with them and so, they may come to learning for self-actualisation, development and empowerment (Maderer & Skiba, 2006a:126). Adult learners are more intrinsically motivated and willing to learn about skills that are of importance to them and that may affect their every-day lives or “will help them to deal with real-life situations.” (Scales, 2008: 81-2). There potentially may be a sense of mortality in their views, and understandably be precious about their time and what they want to achieve (Larson & Perlstein, 2003).

Greater Than the Sum

At the participatory arts organisation I facilitate sessions at, these participants are ‘members’ promoting a sense of inclusion and warmth.

Within the project I have been working with a number of members for several years, which I feel over this time I have developed good working rapport with them.

Within the group there are numerous labels, realities and motivators in the group, which include mobility impairments, depression, anxiety, mild dementia, cognitive impairments.

Most members come to the group for the social interaction, improving their art techniques and knowledge, having access to the facilities to do art work.

During this process of creating the show, the members have been honest about their fears, worries and achievements about what we might do. Some quotes from our book:

What does Arts for Life mean to you?

• Social interaction, learning and fun
• Good making friends with Arc people
• Opens up a whole new world I didn’t realise was here
• An escape from ‘real life’. Somewhere I don’t have to hide how I’m feeling
• Art means enjoyment and getting out and mixing with others
• Expression of themes
• Everything
• To manage an art gallery

Below are some articles that look at participants (older people and geragogy specifically) or issue are around working with them for organisations or facilitators...

Next... The Group