Artspace : enabling young women's recovery through visual arts : a qualitative study

Miriam Brooks, Claire Hooker, Lesley Barclay

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Issue addressed This article reports the qualitative evaluation of “Artspace,” an innovative clinical program combining creative arts with physical and mental health care for young women. The program, provided since 2004, comprises weekly visual arts sessions alongside a youth health clinic offering drop‐in appointments with a nurse, GP and counsellor. Methods A qualitative evaluation of Artspace was conducted between 2016 and 2017. Results The evaluation showed that Artspace was particularly beneficial for those clients who had considerable exposure to social adversity and trauma, and were experiencing related serious health impacts. Artspace facilitated their recovery by enabling equitable access facilitation, social inclusion, creating a “holding” environment, and through the directly therapeutic benefits of artist‐led arts processes. Conclusions Our study highlights the positive impact of artist‐led programs such as Artspace. It also attests to the importance of long‐term sustainability of services, to allow the time needed for young people to experience genuine and sustained recovery, and to reduce the otherwise likely disadvantages associated with mental and physical health problems, as they move into their adult lives. So what? Youth health researchers have been recommending arts programs at health services as a means of engaging young people in health care for over 15 years, however, it remains an underutilised approach in primary care settings. Our evaluation affirms the effectiveness of art programs for this, and also demonstrates that art programs can be a key contributor to recovery from the serious health impacts of adversity and trauma.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)391-401
Number of pages11
JournalHealth Promotion Journal of Australia
Volume31
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • art
  • mental health
  • poor
  • qualitative research
  • women's health services

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