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Cultural Commissioning and Housing Associations
The document outlines the Cultural Commissioning Programme led by Lucie Stephens, highlighting research and initiatives aimed at integrating arts and culture within public sector commissions, specifically to support housing associations. It emphasizes the benefits of arts interventions for various community demographics, such as mental health improvement, social inclusion, and skill development, while providing a framework for community engagement through workshops. Additionally, it presents a case study of the 'Sing for Life' program in Kent, which focuses on supporting older people's independence and tackling social isolation.
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Cultural Commissioning and Housing Associations
- 1. Making Connections withthe Cultural Commissioning Programme Lucie Stephens Head of Co-production, NEF
- 2. Outline • Introducing theCultural Commissioning Programme • Sharing our recent research • Outlining the ‘Making Connections’ work • Examples of how arts and cultural interventions could support Housing Associations
- 3. • Arts &cultural organisations better able to engage with public sector commissioning • Public service commissioners more aware of potential for arts & cultural organisations to deliver outcomes Outcomes
- 4. Value delivered 4 Encourage sustained participation Addressesinclusivity and difference Effective working in preventative agenda Use of existing community assets Place and inclusion Health and well-being Life skills Identity Safe way to explore difference Regeneration Engaging with seldom-heard voices Route into education Pride and identity Reduced social isolation Social bonding Personal communication tool Physical health Addressing stigma Community cohesion Cognitive and creative skills Social skills (confidence, teamwork etc.) Route into employment Mental health recovery Reintegration into society
- 5. Heat map: whois involved 5 Beneficiary Children Young people Older/ retired people People with disabilities Seldom heard communities Local communities General public Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities (BAME) Refugees / Asylum seekers Adults Gender specific
- 6. Heat map: areasof focus Outcome Mental health Well-being Education and learning Employment and training Physical health Inclusion/ participation / community cohesion Crime and public safety Regeneration Conservation and environment Substance use Housing Finance / legal 6
- 7. Sing for life,Kent • Music based programme delivered in Kent evaluated by Canterbury University, achieved a range of positive outcomes
- 8. Opportunities • Supporting independenceand tackling isolation of older people • Personalisation • Dementia • Social prescribing • Obesity • Mental health support and recovery • Wellbeing
- 9. Exercise #1 • Aroundyour table discuss the main challenges that your community is facing • Record these on post-its and group them on flip chart paper • Give a title to the groups
- 10. Exercise #2 • Reviewthe themes you have identified • Agree one issue you are most interested in addressing • Working with others around the table use the planning sheet to identify next steps
- 11. Thanks Please hand inyour evaluation sheet as you leave
Editor's Notes
- #4 The Cultural Commissioning Programme is a three year Arts Council England funded programme which runs to June 2016. It’s being delivered through a partnership between NCVO, NPC and nef Over the three years we aim to deliver a range of workstreams to: - help the arts and cultural sector understand the commissioning landscape and where appropriate develop skills and capacity to engage in cultural commissioning - enable commissioners to develop awareness and know-how of commissioning arts and cultural organisations to deliver public service outcomes - encourage relationships between cultural providers and commissioners - influence policy makers and raise the profile of this area of work. When I say the arts and cultural sector I mean arts organisations, museums and libraries. We are conscious of the distinction between arts and culture that engages beneficiaries as spectators and those that engage beneficiaries as participants. Both of these elements are involved in the programme and we’re interested to see if they support different outcomes for people in different circumstances. Important to emphasise this isn’t about pushing all arts and cultural organisations into contracts with local authorities. Important that more organisations (and commissioners) are aware of the opportunities but must be clear about the reality of being funded in this way (the positives and the negatives) to enable organisations to make informed decisions.
- #5 Brief overview of the research - aim/ timescale/ numbers reached The aim of the work was to develop a clearer picture of the extent to which arts and cultural organisations were involved in delivering commissioned work and to help clarify where best to focus the main activity of the CCP. We think these are ways a&c works that commissioners would be interested in – haven’t mapped them to specific commissioners because may would be interested in various places across the circle. They feed into each other This bit is (kind of) outcomes based Place and inclusion: Regeneration, engaging seldom heard voices, safe ways to explore difference, pride and local identity, community cohesion, reintegration into society Life skills: route into education, route into employment, social skills, cognitive and creative skills Health and wellbeing: physical health, mental health recovery, identity, social bonding, reduce social isolation, address stigma. Then on the right we have more thematic things / ways a&c can work. Engagement / adherence – it’s fun and socially engaging so people want to keep coming Preventative – e.g. it’s building individual and community resilience by building skills, confidence and connections, by building peoples confidence in agencies its increasing the likelihood of people looking for support before they reach a crisis. Inclusivity – celebrating and exploring and articulating difference – people feel it’s less stigmatizing Assets – neutral place, making use of collections. Key Message: Commissioner may find arts and cultural organisations can add value in designing services as well as delivery – through knowledge of beneficiaries and through creative approaches to consultation Emphasize that co-design and co-production is frequently in how approaches are developed and delivered.
- #6 Similar process thinking about beneficiaries Children - Children in care, early years, teenage parents Young people - Often specific outcomes or sub-groups Older people / retired - Isolation, dementia, arts in residential care People with disabilities - Both adults and children Hard to reach - Not a survey criteria but important in interviews Local communities - Arts and kindness; Place making and local identity General public- Lots going on, but not a suitable segment Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) - Not so strong in interviews Refugees / Asylum seekers - Get online and improve resilience – libraries Adults - Lots going on, but not a suitable segment Gender specific - Very little identified So there really is a lot going on in the areas that public sector commissioners are interested in
- #7 Where is there alignment between a&c orgs and commissioners? Mapped what’s going on through a lengthy process including literature review plus interviews with providers commissioners and experts and a survey completed by arts orgs Here, categories shaded darker (at the top) is where we found more going on. Interesting in itself, and helped us identify where to focus the programme. Categories NPC developed for another piece of work. Appreciate that there may be a bias in who responded to our survey - although telephone interviews seemed to endorse the outlook we developed. Won’t go through all of them (possibly pick out a few to highlight) Mental health - Recurring theme. Links with wellbeing and physical health. Well-being - Important outcome for almost all interventions Education and learning - Collaboration, problem solving, re-engaging w/ learning Employment and training - Mostly in combination with specific beneficiary group, homeless, offenders, people with mental health problems, Physical health - Not much in isolation, but lots of overlap. Crime and public safety - Various aspects: domestic violence, diversionary, offenders Inclusion/ participation / community cohesion - Relationship between cultural engagement and civic engagement. Interest of ACE (creative people and places) Regeneration - Strong theme in some areas Conservation and environment - Some examples but not strong theme in survey or interviews Substance use - Relatively little Finance / legal - Not much Housing - Very little, some discussion of supported housing
- #8 The sing for you life programme delivered social music making sessions for older people in the Kent area. The intervention was evaluated in a controlled experiment by the Sidney de Haan centre at Canterbury Christchurch University. The experiment delivered very robust evidence that musical therapies have a strong and durable effects including: Increased general mental health Decreased anxiety Decreased depression The intervention group received treatment at the beginning of the study, leading to a spike in mental health and an ebb in depression and anxiety indicators (@ month 3) the effects then wore off, but the treatment group still delivered higher scores on mental health and lower on depression and anxiety six months after the initiation of the study. The report recommended that music based interventions be more widely recognised as a cost effective treatment strategy and more widely rolled out. Singing interventions now broadened to include groups for people with enduring mental health conditions for people with dementia and their carers.
- #9 A pressing need Policy is supportive Some existing practice already available