"Take a walk in someone else's shoes": the role of participatory arts for health research development and training

Change, Adversity, and Adaptation: Young People's Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic Expressed through Artwork and Semi-Structured Interviews

This study explores how young people's mental health was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic using artwork and semi-structured interviews. The mental health impacts of the pandemic are important to understand so that policy and practice professionals can support those affected, prepare and respond to future crises, and support young people who are isolated and restricted in other contexts. Co-designed participatory art workshops and interviews were conducted with 16-18-year-olds (n = 21, 62% female) from the London-based Longitudinal cohort Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP). Artworks and interview transcripts were qualitatively co-and analysed with young people. From interviews, six themes were identified: adaptation, restriction, change, challenges, overcoming adversity, and lockdown life. From the artwork, four themes were identified: trapped, negative mental wellbeing, positive emotions, and technology. Everyday factors such as home environment, social support, hobbies, habits, and online education were key determinants of how challenged and restricted participants felt, and their capacity to overcome this. This demonstrates the importance of wider (social and environmental) determinants and supports a systems-level public health approach to young people's mental health. For example, young people's mental health services should collaborate with other sectors to address such determinants in a holistic way. Clearer guidance and support with occupation, relationships, environment, routine and activities could mitigate the negative mental health impacts of major environmental changes on young people.

"You're sort of building community in a bigger way": exploring the potential of creative, nature-based activities to facilitate community connections

BACKGROUND

This paper explores the opportunities that creative, nature-based activities offer for mobilising social connections via community-centred approaches to improve individual and collective wellbeing.

METHODS

The study involved ethnographic methods and data was gathered from a nature for wellbeing project implemented in a rural village in North East England.

RESULTS

The findings indicate creative, nature-based activities delivered within an environment marked by an ethic of care and kindness enabled the project to engage with participants at individual and collective levels simultaneously, which enhanced the project's ability to mobilise community skills and assets, and affect connectedness, equity and control within social groups facing significant disadvantages.

CONCLUSION

Creative, nature-based activities, delivered with an ethic of care, present an opportunity to recognise and engage complex and, at times, opposing undercurrents inherent in social connections between individuals and social groups.

Ethical questioning in arts and health-based research: propositions and reflections

Ethical questioning is a framework for considering the ethical implications and practices in research and is used as a tool for thinking about the connections between art and health. It enables researchers and practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of the emotional dimensions in the field of art and health. In this paper, we propose that ethical questioning, grounded in the principles of ethics of care, can foster a more reflexive and holistic approach to understanding the concept of well-being. We also propose that adopting ethical questioning as a methodology, which requires intentional self-reflection and recognition of positionality, can expose and challenge conventional knowledge hierarchies, resulting in more ethical research outcomes and relationships between researchers and participants. Ultimately, our hypothesis proposes that ethical questioning holds the potential to offer an actionable practice that demonstrates ethics of care.