Creative Journeys Report 2019

Creative Journeys 63 Lack of time for care home staff other than the activities coordinator/s to get involved in arts activities was also mentioned in the stage two survey. Indeed, only 4/27 participating homes (15 per cent) allocated dedicated time for staff other than the activities coordinator/s to facilitate activities; this may correspond with those care homes who did not have an activities coordinator though it was not possible to track this on the survey. One survey respondent reported that having only a small team of staff combined with staff leave and sickness absence made it difficult to run arts activities internally; indeed, lack of staff time was cited as the second largest barrier to providing arts activities. This has implications around the feasibility of working with all staff, which was considered important for creating a lasting legacy and will be discussed further in the sustainability section. Conversely, at one of the stage two care homes where interviews took place, the care manager and activities coordinator (interviewed as a pair) said that nearly all staff were involved in arts activities in their home in some form. Everybody, everybody [gets involved]. We’re all involved, the care staff. To be honest, everyone gets involved in it. / We work quite well as a team, I think. I tend to do more daytime myself in the activity room myself. And then I organise different things in the lounges, like five, ten minute bursts of things. And a lot of the care staff here are quite keen to do different things…they are that more involved and they actually quite enjoy that bit of interaction, and I think it’s very difficult for a carer, as much as you try to give them as much time as you can, it’s very difficult for them to spend time one to one… so they’ll do little spurts. (Stage two care manager and activities coordinator) Across stage one and stage two, a further difficulty in some cases was staff assumptions about what a resident was capable of doing, in relation to physical or cognitive impairments and general health decline. In some homes the staff appeared to adopt a deficit approach as opposed to an asset-based approach, i.e. focusing on what the resident can’t do instead of exploring what they can do. In this sense, existing relationships between staff and residents could in fact be counterproductive to the success of arts activities. In one of the homes where the stage two interviews took place, the activities described were primarily passive (e.g. watching a music performance) and both staff and residents perceived that residents wouldn’t be able to carry out more active arts participation. The word “can’t” was used 21 times across the interviews at this home, in relation to perceived lack of capabilities/capacities of residents to get involved in arts activities or cultural events. I can’t sing very much now, my voice is all broken, so I don’t really try. (Stage two resident) I like the music…but I can’t do that actual art now, which I used to like…I’m past all that now, really, things that I can sit and do. I would like to be able to knit and crochet and that again, but I just can’t do it, so I just have to put up with that. (Stage two resident) …obviously people change and they can’t do everything they could do. (Stage two activities coordinator)