66 Dare To Imagine However, it was noted that there may not be “the understanding of what that takes” in terms of working in partnership to embed creativity in care home culture. Concerns were raised about care home positivity obscuring the true impact of ARCH and some artists felt that the legacy they had envisioned had not been achieved. I’m not quite sure what our care home has learned…they’re so positive and effusive, with their sort of excitement…we don’t get a deep, reflective answer...so I’m not quite sure whether it’s really impacted them. Arts organisations evaluation day I don’t know if I’ve seen a massive change in the culture of the organisation. Arts organisation evaluation day Nonetheless, in the evaluation day care home discussion staff talked about how they had already implemented some of the learning from the ARCH programme and how they intended to continue, declaring “it will be a learning curve but it will be fun that it’s carrying on”. The discussion included references to changing processes and incorporating creative approaches into care plans, which represent modest but significant changes in culture. I know it’s changed the way I do things and the way that I think about what activities and how I’m going to do those activities…. Care home evaluation day When they say “I want to go to the beach, I want to go in the garden to touch the leaves”, then I think from [ARCH] we learnt that actually they don’t need to go in the garden to do that. We can bring the garden to them… that’s something we can look into… what do people really want to do and somehow to help them achieve that… to support them rather than saying, “You can’t go, it’s not possible,” at least say, “We’ll do something about that”… I think that will be the vision of the care plans as well. Care home evaluation day Finally, Magic Me shared their learning and legacy from ARCH around how they articulate their identity and support other arts organisations to take creative practice into care homes. …in all the conversations with all the arts partners and care homes, it’s been showing for me what we do really well and it’s crucial that we write that down or articulate it. That will make it stronger in terms of bids for the future but also in terms of our reputation in this work… with care homes. But also our ability to support other people in the future to do this work, I think it all is powerful, carving out an identity and our expertise…that’s going to be a real legacy. Magic Me evaluation day
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA4ODM=