Creative Darlington supported Unforgettable Experiences in recruiting artists, designing, and developing opportunities for older adults to improve their mental health and memory through engagement with artists.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a serious impact on people’s mental health with an increase in demand for support from health and social care professionals for common mental health disorders and more serious mental illnesses. It also impacted on the creative sector in terms of sustainability. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee warned it presented “the biggest threat to the UK’s cultural infrastructure, institutions and workforce in a generation”.
When Unforgettable Experiences proposed a method to benefit local people who were struggling with their mental health and memory, that involved artists, we allocated budget support for local artists to design and develop a bespoke programme which to keep people’s minds active and stimulate cognition. Unforgettable Experiences ensured a broad range of artistic participatory opportunities were offered to programme participants, including visual art, music, dance, storytelling, creative writing, history and photography.
The pilot was a huge success receiving over 134 referrals and supporting over 71 people to access a minimum of 12 therapeutic artistic sessions online over four months. An independent evaluation of the project showed that it had improved wellbeing, memory function and quality of life for older adults who accessed the project by 20%.
Unforgettable Experiences subsequently received funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to expand the service across Tees Valley to work with up to 1,000 older adults.
www.unforgettableexperiences.org.uk
