Combating Social Isolation through Creative and Community Engagement: COVID and beyond (Community COVID).
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Genetics Evolution and Environment
Abstract
The coronavirus pandemic has seen a huge increase in the availability of resources designed to inspire and connect us during lockdown. From online singing groups and art classes, to guides for engaging creatively with nature from your window, garden or local park, there are hundreds of resources designed to combat isolation and stimulate creativity at home.
We want to understand how participants engage with these initiatives, such as the Get Creative campaign. We want to know the positive and negative aspects of engaging with creative resources whilst at home, and how this affects participants' lives, their health and their wellbeing. We want to know what works, how and why, so that we can make recommendations about the key ingredients for high quality resources.
We will use participant feedback to generate guidance for organisations to use to help people in their communities, through for example harnessing the power of volunteers to support people who may be less able to access online resources, and we will provide guidance regarding safeguarding, facilitation and accessibility. Finally, by working with participants, providers and partners we will use the learning from this project to enable organisations to support their communities as they adapt to post-lockdown Britain.
We want to understand how participants engage with these initiatives, such as the Get Creative campaign. We want to know the positive and negative aspects of engaging with creative resources whilst at home, and how this affects participants' lives, their health and their wellbeing. We want to know what works, how and why, so that we can make recommendations about the key ingredients for high quality resources.
We will use participant feedback to generate guidance for organisations to use to help people in their communities, through for example harnessing the power of volunteers to support people who may be less able to access online resources, and we will provide guidance regarding safeguarding, facilitation and accessibility. Finally, by working with participants, providers and partners we will use the learning from this project to enable organisations to support their communities as they adapt to post-lockdown Britain.
Publications
Koebner I
(2020)
4046 Museum and Arts-Space Programming Intended to Improve Health: Interim Survey Results
in Journal of Clinical and Translational Science
Fancourt D
(2020)
Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.
in BJPsych open
Thomson LJ
(2020)
Art, nature and mental health: assessing the biopsychosocial effects of a 'creative green prescription' museum programme involving horticulture, artmaking and collections.
in Perspectives in public health
Koebner IJ
(2021)
Developing a framework for arts in health programs targeting individuals with chronic pain: a mixed-methods study of practitioners.
in Public health
Bungay H
(2021)
Arts, creativity and health.
in Public health
Mughal R
(2022)
Rapid Evidence Review of Community Engagement and Resources in the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Can Community Assets Redress Health Inequities?
in International journal of environmental research and public health
Turk A
(2022)
Self-growth, wellbeing and volunteering - Implications for social prescribing: A qualitative study
in SSM - Qualitative Research in Health
| Description | The Community COVID project (AHRC COVID response grant) is formed from a consortium of academics, people with lived experience, along with colleagues from Arts Council England, Voluntary Arts, Natural England, the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance (Victoria), NHS Personalised Care and the National Academy for Social Prescribing. We are seeking to understand how participants experiencing lockdown, self-isolation, who are vulnerable, or who are shielding, engage with community assets and resources. We want to understand what works for the most disadvantaged members of society, how and why - critically we want to understand how best to support this target audience. To do this we have been running surveys, workshops and focus groups to better understand participant needs, and how providers have responded to the pandemic - mostly this has involved engaging with a wide range of providers (museums, artists, nature connectors), SP link workers, healthcare professionals and people with lived experience. The Community COVID project has identified hundreds of resources, activities and programmes designed to support people during lockdown - both on and offline - some are adaptations of existing programmes but many are new programmes. Most are targeting isolation and mild-moderate mental health issues (depression, anxiety etc): • Data from multiple sources shows that people are participating in activities (both on- and offline) more often now than before COVID restrictions. • We found a strong correlation of loneliness with psychological wellbeing (we used 3-item Loneliness Scale; others used ONS); as loneliness decreased, wellbeing increased. • Respondents who did not feel at all connected to others had the highest loneliness scores. • Increases in wellbeing were associated with the extent to which participants felt connected to other people; hence the more connected they felt, the higher their wellbeing. • Frequency of participation in activities was not affected by how respondents took part (i.e. online, offline etc.). • Wellbeing and happiness scores were slightly higher for respondents who participated online with other people. It appears that creating an 'online community of practice' and opportunities for sharing and connecting is paramount - perhaps less so than what you actually do. Also having an experienced facilitator is key and having opportunities to engage both on- and offline is important and ideally a combination of on- and offline within a programme works well, especially where creativity is built into activities. A key feature of our findings is the value of developing what we might call 'creative health' partnerships which harness the collective power of arts, nature and community assets, in collaboration with health, social care and voluntary third sector services. In some cases this has led to new and unexpected collaborations (such as museums, libraries or artists working with food banks or local authority risk registers), and this has created new ways of working to support vulnerable, marginalised or isolated members of the community. But despite providers reporting that they have been doing more outreach work to target people from disadvantaged or vulnerable backgrounds, many feel that there are significant barriers to participation for vulnerable and shielding individuals; this includes difficulties in finding out about what's available in their community and a lack of support in accessing resources that are available. Most link workers and other community workers are used to working face to face, so the move to online/telephone is impinging the way they work, for example many told us they find new ways of working make it harder to build trust and get to know someone. The link worker role is also very dynamic and has to respond to the changing needs of the health service - for example link workers and other community health professionals have been drafted in to help with vaccinations - which means they can't stay connected with their patients. What has become apparent is the fragility of the community ecosystem - we have seen a fantastic response from the arts, cultural and voluntary community sector but many organisations are operating on shoe string budgets which in many cases have dried up - for example Arts Fund research showing 60% of museums concerned they may face permanent closure due to budget cuts. Arts and other community organisations have therefore had to be very agile and adapt their offers very rapidly - as a result there has been a lack of evaluation and a sense of adapting 'on the hoof' rather than the usual piloting that might go on - the pandemic has favoured organisations who - irrespective of size - can adapt swiftly and have a deep understanding of their audience needs. Finally, there has been a huge surge in Social Prescribing referrals during the pandemic alongside increased recognition of the importance of community assets such as green spaces, arts and culture. So, lessons learnt from the pandemic will offer new insights into how community assets can be repositioned to support individuals who face the most severe inequalities. To date this new research is shedding light on how creative and community engagement can be used to tackle some of the major social determinants of health (such as isolation, digital poverty, inequalities), and has given us a better understanding of how arts, creativity, nature and other community assets can be better deployed to tackle health inequalities, but there is still a long way to go to understand how best to make all of this great work available to those face the worst inequalities - be they financial, health or social. i.e. how we can make the community ecosystem fairer and more equitable for all. https://culturehealthresearch.wordpress.com/community-covid/ Final report now available: https://culturehealthresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/community-covid-report-december-2021.pdf |
| Exploitation Route | We are linked with the development of the new National Centre for Creative Health and feeding outcomes from this study into this and related national and international strategic and policy activities (e.g. working with the National Academy for Social Prescirbing/NHS Personalsied Care; advising on AHRC/DCMS Boundless Creativity Advisory Panel) |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/culture-nature-health-research/community-covid |
| Description | Findings have been fed into the following organisations: DCMS DHSC NHSE National Academy for Social Prescribing National Centre for Creative Health Social Prescirbing Network Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Partnership with non-academic partners |
| Organisation | NHS England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Connected with a range of non-academic partners including: NHS England Personalised Care Team, National Academy for Social Prescribing, Culture Health and Welllbeing Alliance, DCMS, Dept of Health and Social Care. Consulted with these partners about health inequalities |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners provided advice, guidance and, opinions regarding their priorities for health inequalities research |
| Impact | Agreement to form a research hub with NASP |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | AHRC/DCMS Boundless Creativity Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited to give advice as part of this workshop which sparked lots of interesting debate about how arts can support indviduals through the pandemic |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Arts4Dementia Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Launch of Arts4Dementia's Arts4Brain Health SP report |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://arts4dementia.org.uk/our-presidents-blog/ |
| Description | Centre for Cultural Value, Culture on Referral workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Sharing data and findings from mutliple studies on theipotential of social prescribing to address health inequity |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Creative Lives Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Cross sector conference drawing together researchers, practitioners and people with lived experience - I was co-host and panelist |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology-health-care/research/behavioural-science-and-health/resources/exp... |
| Description | International Culture, Health and Wellbeing Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Largest international conference focusing on arts, creativity and health - invited panelist/chair |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/news/general-news/culture-health-and-wellbeing-internat... |
| Description | Invited speaker |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | NERC QUENCH Conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/about-us/engagement/quench-network/ |
| Description | More Culture, Less Medicine Conference, Brighton and Hove City Council |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This conference sought to draw attention to the value of culture in supporting public health; I gave the Keynote providing context and key findings from our research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/arts-health-and-wellbeing/more-culture-less-medicine-2/ |
| Description | NHSE Personalised Care Social Prescirbing Link Worker Webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This talk described our social prescribing research and how SP tackles health inequalities |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | National Academy for Social Prescribing; The Show |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | NASP Showcase event - I talked about the Academic Partners Collaborative and the evidence reviews we are conducting for NASP |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Podcast: Public Health Disrupted: How arts and creativity can tackle health inequalities? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A podcast for UCL Health of the Public's PH Distriupted series: How arts and creativity can tackle health inequalities? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://soundcloud.com/uclsound/public-health-disrupted-how-can-arts-and-creativity-tackle-health-in... |
| Description | Reframing Museums Conference, Louvre Abu Dhabi + New York University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | At this confrenece organised by the Louvre Abu Dhabi + New York University I spoke about Museums and Empathy - this sparked lots of interesting discussion about how museums support emotional wellbeing, e.g. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/louvre-abu-dhabi-symposium |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/events/2020/november/reframing-museums.html |
| Description | Talk, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This invited talk was arranged to support and guide the Art Gallery of Ontario's community development programme; the Q&A that followed helped the museum to argue for expanding their programme to include more people from disadvantaged communities and consider issues of health inequaities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Talk, National Social Prescribing Champions Scheme Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I was pleased to share findings from multiple studies about the value of social prescirbing to people from marginalised backgrounds, which sparked lots of great questions frok the audience about how to make social prescribing more accessible and equitable. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | UCL-National Trust Partnership Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Launch of UCL-NT Evidence Reviews: our talk focused on historic buildings and wellbeing |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |