creative arts with the aging veteran population

1. Incorporating Creative Arts into the Aging
Veteran Community
Introduced By: Roxanne (Sweeney) Carney

2. Project: A creative arts workshop for the Maine
Veterans' Home aging community
• Problem: Maine offers little for creative arts as a mode of therapeutic
interventions.
• Solution: to develop and facilitate a creative arts workshop for the aging
veteran population of Maine Veterans' Home in Scarborough, Maine.
• Outcome: by developing a competent creative arts workshop with following
exhibition the improtance of creative arts with the aging veteran population
will be understood and further promoted.

3. Original Objective: Devise, develop, and facilitate
a competent creative arts workshop.
Current Objective: Produce an efficient creative
arts workshop model that illustrates the
importance of utilizing creative arts with aging
populations and a model that can be replicated.
• The objective has been modified and revised to the meet the needs of the
timeline and to meet the needs of the population served.

4. Why art? Why the aging veteran community?
• Incorporating art recreation assists the participants in a multifaceted manner. Art therapy
and creative expression is known to relieve depression and anxiety amongst the aging
population as well as the veteran population. Creative expression assists the individual in
improving their orientation to reality, promotes strengths and recognizes courage of military
commitment while creating a visual record of experiences. Creative expression workshops
help sustain cognitive skills and validate past experiences.
• (Information Retrieved from online edition of the US Department of Veteran Affairs
VAnguard Magazine September 2007 issue and the online Creativity Matters: Arts and Aging
Toolkit)

5. Successes
Success
1. Approval
2. Fostering Relationships
3. Resources
4. Confidence
Significance
1. Supervisor of Activities has approved creative arts
workshop and is thrilled to include an ending exhibit.
2. Developing relationships with Maine Veterans' Home
center staff, outreaching to members of creative arts and
aging organizations, as well as veterans and art
organizations in the Maine and surrounding area
3. Building database of creative art therapy resources,
veteran centers, and senior assistance in the Maine and
surrounding area
4. Confidence in project is strengthening as well as
confidence in networking and coalition building

6. Challenges
Challenge
1. Time
2. Mental Flexibility
3. Agenda/Schedule
4. Too Much Info
5. Confidence
Problem
1. There is never enough time.
2. Control is dictated by others.
3. The organizer juggles.
4. There is always more to learn.
5. Sometimes, confidence in pursuit is
difficult to maintain.

7. Valuable Lessons Learned
• Respect the Power Dynamic: Proactive can be offensive.
• Research: All knowledge is good knowledge.
• The importance of Organization: Organize, and then organize again.
• Schedule, Schedule, Schedule.
• Summarize, Summarize, Summarize.

8. Whats Next?
1. Meta-analysis
2. Interview
3. Agenda
4. Facilitate
5. Evaluate
1. Contrast and combine scholarly results of studies
on the positive effects of incorporating creative arts
into the aging community and veteran community.
2. Interview the prospective participants from the
Maine Veterans' Home to determine creative
expression modality.
3. Develop Workshop agenda to follow.
4. Facilitate Workshop according to agenda, follow
workshop with exhibition of artwork for
participants, families, and community.
5. Evaluate the success of the workshop according to
participants, center staff and family.