Project overview
Our project aims to improve education access and healthcare quality in Hampshire through the development of ‘creative’ health engagement activities enabling community participants, artists and bone researchers to co-produce art based educational resources around skeletal health. The creative education packs produced with ArtCare (Salisbury District Hospital) will be uniquely ‘personalised’ in scope following collaborative workshops with a range of marginalised communities and subsequently tailored to demographics who suffer most from health inequity incorporating ethnicity, gender, education and socioeconomic background e.g. South Asian British women are more susceptible to earlier menopause and earlier onset of osteoporosis. We will initially focus on the Wessex region with established community partners to include vulnerable and isolated adults from minority groups.
The education packs based on previously successful creative models designed by partner ArtCare and will combine educational online resources. The initial packs produced from each group will be available for wider dissemination and feedback accumulated across a range of further communities. The grant will fund production of resources for the education packs, focus groups and a researcher to manage the project (website, impact, evaluation and growth). Art workshops (3 sessions 2hrs each) to be designed and undertaken with established community partners including i) Hope Street Southampton (vulnerable women, children, staff probation services) through Claire Cresdee (scheduled for January 2025), ii) Chai and Chat session (SE Asian Community support group) Southampton through Kev Popat Right at Home (Scheduled for February 2025) and iii) St Denys Activity Group BAME community through Anne Cato (Scheduled March 2025). Workshops will be designed to be interactive and undertaken within local community spaces to reduce power balances associated with academic research environment, institutions and hospitals. The first session for each group will be co-led by Lesley Self and Claire Clarkin using the medical archive from Salisbury District Hospital to included historical x-rays (such as Egyptian mummies), medical text books as well as orthopaedic artefacts. The second part of the workshops will be an art based creative activity for both men and women around skeletal health, led by Lesley Self. During this activity conversations around individual experiences linked to bone health will be discussed. The second part of the workshop will be focused around co-production of creative activities that are culturally representative of the communities themselves. Ahead of the final session Claire Clarkin and Lesley Self will create three educational activity packs and resources for each group. At the end of this pilot study we will have produced three packs for each of our community groups, focusing on south east Asian communities, Black communities and gender/female health.
Creative projects such as this collaboration between ArtCare and Southampton University can help explain and explore complex ideas simply – they connect communities to their healthcare can assist with prevention and healthier lifestyle. The co-design principle works for service delivery too. It removes the need to guess or assume what people need from their healthcare and instead captures new and informative stories that can guide new services and better practice.
The education packs based on previously successful creative models designed by partner ArtCare and will combine educational online resources. The initial packs produced from each group will be available for wider dissemination and feedback accumulated across a range of further communities. The grant will fund production of resources for the education packs, focus groups and a researcher to manage the project (website, impact, evaluation and growth). Art workshops (3 sessions 2hrs each) to be designed and undertaken with established community partners including i) Hope Street Southampton (vulnerable women, children, staff probation services) through Claire Cresdee (scheduled for January 2025), ii) Chai and Chat session (SE Asian Community support group) Southampton through Kev Popat Right at Home (Scheduled for February 2025) and iii) St Denys Activity Group BAME community through Anne Cato (Scheduled March 2025). Workshops will be designed to be interactive and undertaken within local community spaces to reduce power balances associated with academic research environment, institutions and hospitals. The first session for each group will be co-led by Lesley Self and Claire Clarkin using the medical archive from Salisbury District Hospital to included historical x-rays (such as Egyptian mummies), medical text books as well as orthopaedic artefacts. The second part of the workshops will be an art based creative activity for both men and women around skeletal health, led by Lesley Self. During this activity conversations around individual experiences linked to bone health will be discussed. The second part of the workshop will be focused around co-production of creative activities that are culturally representative of the communities themselves. Ahead of the final session Claire Clarkin and Lesley Self will create three educational activity packs and resources for each group. At the end of this pilot study we will have produced three packs for each of our community groups, focusing on south east Asian communities, Black communities and gender/female health.
Creative projects such as this collaboration between ArtCare and Southampton University can help explain and explore complex ideas simply – they connect communities to their healthcare can assist with prevention and healthier lifestyle. The co-design principle works for service delivery too. It removes the need to guess or assume what people need from their healthcare and instead captures new and informative stories that can guide new services and better practice.