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Drawing on the evaluation of a series of workshops in painting and drawing, this paper will assess the impact of attendance on the well-being of participants who had been identified as being at risk of developing mental health problems.

The evaluation was conducted by an independent researcher and consisted of interviews with group members at the beginning and the end of the project about their expectations and experiences. To complement this data, interviews were also carried out with group leaders and artists.

Workshop attendance helped to promote the mutual recovery and inclusion of participants while also enhancing the supportive capacities and social capital of their respective groups. These impacts were broad, sustained and mutually reinforcing, transcending the individual and the group to incorporate wider settings.

The importance of the these wider factors are often overlooked by traditional recovery models with their person-centred focus tending to neglect the context in which this recovery is located.

Recent years have seen an increasing reliance on social support at home for people with dementia and the advocacy of a person centred and integrated approach in its provision. However, little is known about the effective ingredients of this support and how they differ from more generic or health-based services. The purpose of this paper is to explore the existing evidence base.

A review of relevant literature was carried out, combining a systematic search and selection of articles with a narrative analysis.

The review identified 14 relevant studies of varying research designs which yielded conflicting findings with regard to the optimal timing of interventions and their overall impact. This highlights the problems of review and generalisability when attempting to compare findings of research in this area. This was exacerbated by the blurred divide between health and social care and ambiguities in the meaning of the latter.

This methodological heterogeneity demonstrates the need for consistency in research approaches if comparisons are to be made. Further questions include the precise components that distinguish social care from health care, the optimal timing for the introduction of this care and whether adherence to good practice in this area can be linked to cost effectiveness.

The review identifies relevant issues in need of further investigation and tentative themes emerging from the literature which suggest the utility of an adequately resourced, integrated and responsive approach to intervention.

Involvement in creative practice is commonly regarded as “therapeutic” but what is actually meant by this and how does this work promote social inclusion and mental well-being, particularly when performed in a group setting? Drawing on the findings of a research project called Clay Transformations (AHRC), the purpose of this paper is to consider these questions. The project involved running a series of clay workshops aimed at people with experience of mental health service use and those who work with them.

In order to explore the significance of art involvement to people who use mental health services, qualitative research findings are presented. These are then linked to relevant literature in order to consider the way in which workshop participation helped to promote social inclusion and mental well-being.

Many benefits were gained from workshop attendance deriving from involvement in the process and the outcome of art creation. These benefits were enhanced by the group context in which the work took place and the mutual support and interaction arising from this group membership.

The recognition of the therapeutic value of creative practice has been accompanied by the emergence of the notion of “mutual recovery” which extends the concept of recovery beyond an individualised focus. The positive findings of this project uphold these developments and suggest that mental health practice should address the wider social contexts that can facilitate the promotion of mental well-being.

Recent years have seen the advocacy of person-centred approaches to dementia care. An important component of this approach has been the use of arts in the promotion of health and well-being. However, relatively little attention has been given to the barriers and facilitators experienced in trying to implement these types of interventions in a dementia care setting. It is therefore, the purpose of this paper is to help to redress this neglect by examining the process of implementing a personalised musical intervention for the clients of a specialist dementia home care service.

Drawing on interviews with five project stakeholders, the paper examines, not only the potential benefits to be gained from the musical intervention but also identifies the barriers experienced in its implementation and ways in which they could be overcome.

It was found that although the musical intervention had a potentially positive impact, there were multi-levelled barriers to its implementation including issues of training, leadership as well as contextual issues such as commissioning and resourcing more generally.

The key role played by these issues in the process of implementation suggests that practice should transcend its focus on individual wellbeing and address the wider factors that can facilitate or prevent its fulfilment. While the multi-levelled nature of the obstacles identified suggest that the implementation of innovative interventions within health and social care settings should adopt a similarly eclectic approach.

Formal ties between the theatre and research dissemination have only recently developed and its general efficacy is largely unknown. Here the purpose of this paper is to redress this neglect by examining the effectiveness of a research-based theatrical event in promoting dementia knowledge transfer with a group of front line care workers. The event ran over eight days and consisted of an original theatrical production followed by a chaired audience discussion and workshops.

Questionnaires which had been developed specifically for this evaluation were completed by 863 front line workers on the day of the event, eliciting their profiles and immediate reactions. Three months after the event, 30 completed a follow-up questionnaire and eight were interviewed.

Attendance was well received with high degrees of both cognitive and emotional engagement being expressed in the initial questionnaire. The follow-up evaluation suggested that these positive reactions were sustained over time. However, many taking part in this follow-up thought that their practice had not changed as a result of event attendance. This apparent discrepancy between knowledge transfer and utilisation appeared to be partly the result of the influence of contextual factors in impeding this utilisation within work settings.

Evidence is provided on the positive impact of theatre on dementia carers’ working lives. This is sufficient to warrant further applications of this method, provided there is careful attention to embedding the messages in the workplace context and evaluating their efficacy.

Dementia care is an issue of increasing policy focus, with person centred approaches becoming synonymous with quality provision in this area. However, the implementation and efficacy of this approach is difficult to measure and there are still huge variations in working practices, with task centred approaches traditionally predominating over more holistic forms of care. In order to address these issues the procedure of dementia care mapping has been developed, which aims to assess the wellbeing of people with dementia and other vulnerable groups through the observation of communal activities. This article aims to critically assess the implementation of a person centred approach.

With the use of dementia care mapping, this article assesses the implementation of a person centred approach with a group of care home residents. All were female, their ages ranged from 77 to 92.

It is shown that while participants potentially experienced many benefits from person centred approaches and the social engagement and integration that derived from this, its efficacy and impact was undermined by contextual factors such as staff shortages.

In order that contextual factors are recognised and addressed, practice should transcend its focus on the promotion of individual wellbeing and address the wider group and social contexts which can facilitate or prevent its fulfilment.

Drawing on literature and the evaluation of a UK community Arts in Health project, this article aims first to demonstrate that, in spite of the common association in mental health practice between art and the use of psychotherapeutic techniques, involvement in art creation can, in itself, have a sustained and positive impact on the mental and social wellbeing of participants and, second, to give an analysis of the different forms of arts involvement in health.

A qualitative evaluation of a successful process‐based arts in health‐care provision to existing vulnerable mental health community groups is discussed.

While the implementation of traditional forms of art therapy tends to be the preserve of those with specialist training, process‐orientated art for health projects have been found to be more versatile and are developments in which many practitioners potentially play an important part. Arts in Health provision in a community setting can offer positive health benefits, and aid health promotion.

More widespread, sustained funding and further evaluation and research for this accessible, cost‐effective means of health promotion in a community setting are needed.

Arts in Health, in institutions (such as prison and hospital) as well as community, is a rapidly expanding, successful and attractive, yet severely under‐funded provision. Descriptive in‐depth evaluations and critical analyses of the field, such as that presented here, need to be made available in order to develop the field practically and theoretically.