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Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’

Karkou, Vicky; Omylinska-Thurston, Joanna; Thurston, Scott; Clark, Rebecca; Perris, Emma; Kaehne, Axel; Pearson, Mark

Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’ Thumbnail


Authors

Vicky Karkou

Rebecca Clark

Emma Perris

Axel Kaehne

Mark Pearson



Contributors

Soham Bandyopadhyay
Editor

Abstract

Place-based arts initiatives are regarded as rooted in local need and as having capacity to engage local assets. However, many place-based arts initiatives remain poorly funded and short-lived, receiving little attention on how to scale up and sustain their activities. In this study we make a unique contribution to knowledge about scaling up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing through focusing on the example of ‘Arts for the Blues’, an arts-based psychological group intervention designed to reduce depression and improve wellbeing amongst primary care mental health service users in deprived communities. Methodologically, we used realist evaluation to refine the study’s theoretical assumptions about scaling up, drawing on the lived and professional experiences of 225 diverse stakeholders’ and frontline staff through a series of focus groups and evaluation questions at two stakeholders’ events and four training days. Based on our findings, we recommend that to scale up place-based arts initiatives which support mental health and wellbeing: (i) the initiative needs to be adaptable, clear, collaborative, evidence-based, personalised and transformative; (ii) the organisation has to have a relevant need, have an understanding of the arts, has to have resources, inspiration and commitment from staff members, relevant skillsets and help from outside the organisation; (iii) at a policy level it is important to pay attention to attitude shifts towards the arts, meet rules, guidelines and standards expected from services, highlight gaps in provision, seek out early intervention and treatment options, and consider service delivery changes. The presence of champions at a local level and buy-in from managers, local leaders and policy makers are also needed alongside actively seeking to implement arts initiatives in different settings across geographical spread. Our theoretically-based and experientially-refined study provides the first ever scaling up framework developed for place-based arts initiatives that support the mental health and wellbeing, offering opportunities for spread and adoption of such projects in different organisational contexts, locally, nationally and internationally.

Citation

Karkou, V., Omylinska-Thurston, J., Thurston, S., Clark, R., Perris, E., Kaehne, A., & Pearson, M. (in press). Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’. PloS one, 19(1), e0296178. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296178

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 7, 2023
Online Publication Date Jan 2, 2024
Deposit Date Jan 9, 2024
Publicly Available Date Jan 9, 2024
Journal PLOS ONE
Print ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 19
Issue 1
Pages e0296178
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296178

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