Journal of Applied Arts & Health - Online First

This case study provides an overview of ‘Sidestep’, an arts in health project for staff at a specialist child sexual abuse unit in an Irish paediatric hospital, undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of the project was to provide a ‘virtual creative space’ to support staff across this period of professional and personal challenge. The project was evaluated using pencil and paper questionnaires, and participant feedback is included here, to illuminate the value of an art-based approach to supporting staff well-being at times of crisis and change. Staff described participation in the project as a unique experience which allowed for connection and a sense of ballast during remote working conditions, as well as providing opportunities for meaning-making and reflection. The article is accompanied by images from the project to illustrate the ways in which participants used the image-making process to explore experiences of the pandemic.

This article presents a reflection on the hurdles faced by arts and health organizations during England’s COVID-19 lockdown in 2020–21 through the work of the arts team at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), Lime Arts. As the pandemic hit, Lime risked being shut down, their premises reallocated and staff redeployed. Convinced that, more than ever, frontline health professionals might benefit from creative workshops, Lime piloted a six-month innovative programme of online creative workshops for MFT staff. Lime then partnered with the Employee Health and Wellbeing Service to take the online workshops across the Trust, creating a new project called Create.Connect.Unwind. The pilot phase ended in May 2022 with a Creativity and Wellbeing Festival at Manchester Royal Infirmary. The authors reflect on this two-year project, considering in retrospect the team response, the participant response and the artwork created as well as the creative perspective behind the project.

Review of: Sensory Theatre: How to Make Interactive, Inclusive, Immersive Theatre for Diverse Audiences by a Founder of Oily Cart, Tim Webb (2022)

New York: Routledge, 278 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-00309-128-8, e-book, $35.95

Creative practice differs widely across the contexts of artistic performance and therapy. In this article the authors describe a novel example of how the otherwise separate fields of choreographic practices and dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) have fed into each other. More specifically, the article outlines (1) how research into the effectiveness of DMP for depression has been used to create an interdisciplinary performance and (2) how the creative process has informed the development of therapeutic work. The performance was originally intended to disseminate quantitative findings from a study in DMP, but, as it developed, the resonances between artistic and therapeutic practice became the key focus and led to the artists contributing to the principles of a new creative therapy. The performance toured internationally and the new therapy model ‘Arts for the Blues’ has been piloted in the NHS, charities and schools in the north-west of England.