Wellbeing & Museums
‘Wellbeing’, it’s a bit of a buzz word right now and with the current Covid-19 situation, wellbeing is at the forefront of all our minds. But what has wellbeing got to do with museums? In this post I take a look at some of the theories behind wellbeing initiatives in museums.
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This post is different from my previous ones - there's a bit of theory thrown in and it's a little more academic. I also want to add that this subject is vast, and I could provide more details and examples, but this is not the point of the post. Other than individuals who actually work or volunteer in museums, I think many people are unaware of the positive impact that museums can have on people's lives. As such, the aim of this post is to outline some key ideas behind why museums can help with wellbeing initiatives.
Before we start, I think some definitions are needed!
What does 'wellbeing' actually mean?
Wellbeing is a keyword in the World Health Organisation's definition of 'health':
'a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity'
WHO also recognises that health and wellbeing are influenced by social and economic factors. The New Economics Foundation's ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ takes WHO’s definition further:
- Connect - making new social networks
- Be active - getting out of the house
- Take notice - being more aware of surroundings
- Give - sharing stories and experiences or volunteering time
- Keep learning - learning new things or use existing skills
But other than ‘learning’, it is not immediately clear how museums can help.
Wellbeing & Museums
The UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport states that ‘culture brings huge benefits by providing better quality of life and wellbeing within local communities’. The theory is that museums, galleries and historic houses are well-placed to support individual and community health and wellbeing not only in their roles as public forums for learning and debate, but also through their capacity to develop cultural programmes that deliver services to targeted audiences. These activities can:
The UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport states that ‘culture brings huge benefits by providing better quality of life and wellbeing within local communities’. The theory is that museums, galleries and historic houses are well-placed to support individual and community health and wellbeing not only in their roles as public forums for learning and debate, but also through their capacity to develop cultural programmes that deliver services to targeted audiences. These activities can:
- Promote culture and creativity
- Provide opportunities to form social connections
- Help people make sense of themselves and the world
- Challenge health and non-health related stigma
- Help engage with marginalised or hard to reach groups.
Loneliness
You may not expect the National Trust, custodian of stately homes, coastlines and countryside around the UK, to have a role in community service. Yet one such example of a wellbeing initiative in a heritage setting is at the National Trust's Calke Abbey.
You may not expect the National Trust, custodian of stately homes, coastlines and countryside around the UK, to have a role in community service. Yet one such example of a wellbeing initiative in a heritage setting is at the National Trust's Calke Abbey.
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| Gardens at Calke Abbey |
Also known as the 'un-stately home', this property is unique in its mission to ‘repair not restore’. When the property was handed to the National Trust in 1985, a decision was made to preserve the house as it was found. Left untouched for many years, the rooms have peeling wallpaper, mounds of old furniture and a startling quantity of collections. Because of the condition in which it was found, the story of Calke Abbey has been built around the ‘tale of a reclusive and socially-isolated family who guarded the estate from modern life and lived eccentric, disconnected lives’.
(Sorry for the low quality images, when I took these a year or so ago I was not intending to use them in a blog!)
(Sorry for the low quality images, when I took these a year or so ago I was not intending to use them in a blog!)
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| Bedroom, Calke Abbey |
To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the death of previous owner Henry Harpur Crewe, dubbed ‘The Isolated Baronet’, a research-led collaboration between the National Trust and the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, developed a programme around the issue of loneliness. The exhibition HumanKind, reveals new perspectives of the people that lived there, from a housekeeper to the 'Isolated Baronet' himself, including the difficulties they faced and how they overcame these through human connections and kindness.
Calke Abbey uses these stories to challenge the stigma that surrounds isolation and to get people talking. Aims also include generating relationships with local groups, making space available at Calke for organisations already working with those at risk from loneliness and working in partnership with those organisations on a range of projects. They have established a 'chatty cafe' on the site, which is part of a wider national initiative.
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| Stairwell, Calke Abbey |
Bear with me, this next part gets a little technical!
How do museums reach out?
Some museums use Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (available from local councils) that highlight wellbeing issues affecting local communities. This helps determine what types of programmes to create.
Consultation with these communities is also a way that museums pinpoint issues to explore.
‘Social Prescribing’ is increasingly involving museum or arts environments. It enables frontline healthcare professionals to refer patients to a link worker. This provides them with a face-to-face conversation to learn about opportunities to improve their health and wellbeing, from art therapy to music programmes. It is an innovative movement with the potential to relieve pressure on the NHS.
Partnerships and co-creation of projects and offers with other cultural institutions and charities are great ways to reach new audiences, but can also bring other benefits such as training opportunities for staff and access to more funding. In the list below you will notice that all the institutions are partnered with at least one other organisation.
Do we know if it works?
A lack of awareness of the evaluation underpinning these activities means that there has been little consistency in policy development. However, there is a growing body of evidence from a range of methods that demonstrates the positive impact of these schemes (I have included some of the assessment reports in the list at the end of this post).
Evaluation methods vary depending on the project, but in short, evaluation can be set up in the following steps:
- Agree the objectives
- Agree evaluation tool
- Establish baseline measure - e.g. pre-project interviews
- Mid- and end- project assessment against objectives and baseline measure
A 5th step of post-project evaluation, conducted years after participants have completed a project is also advised.
Objectives could range from participants gaining more confidence, improving employability, or feeling more able to manage a condition.
Evaluations tools such as Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale
(WEMWBS), UCL Wellbeing Measures Umbrella, and interviews can be used to measure success.
There can be challenges in evaluation, such as 'evaluation burden' whereby participants feel pressure to answer surveys or interviews in order to keep taking part. This can usually be resolved by making it clear that they are not obliged to complete evaluation.
What next?
What is clear is that in order to make wellbeing initiatives a success, a sustained commitment is required by museums to shape the communities around them. Unfortunately, a shortfall of resource is often cited as a key issue in maintaining these projects.
For now, let's appreciate and promote the many museums and cultural organisations making a difference through their wellbeing projects. Some lovely people on Twitter suggested the amazing programmes below, which is just a small portion of those that are out there.
Cultural institutions everywhere, please share your projects and their evaluation far and wide - post it on social media, your website, everywhere you can!
Special thanks to this Webinar - 'The Beaney - Measuring Health and Wellbeing in Museums'
Culture & Wellbeing Projects
Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
A sector support organisation for the cultural sector, funded by Arts Council England. It connects everyone who believes that creative and cultural engagement can transform our health and wellbeing. There are resources, case studies, research and evaluations pertaining to culture and wellbeing projects.
University of Cambridge Museums & Botanic Gardens
- Curiosities at the Bedside
Partnership between the University of Cambridge Museums and the Addenbrooke’s Hospital Dialysis Unit. Moving around the wards, museum staff invite patients to look, hold, discuss and explore the collection objects.
- Portals to the World at the Museum of Zoology
A long-running project for adults with dementia and their care partners.
- Dancing in the Museum
Collaboration with the Cambridge City Council Independent Living Service aimed at isolated elderly people. Groups of sheltered housing residents visit the museum to explore artworks, listen to music and dance together.
- Arts on Prescription
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Fitzwilliam Museum, in partnership with Cambridgeshire charity Arts and Minds, to deliver a series of weekly art workshops for people experiencing depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.
Restoration Trust
The Restoration Trust works in partnership with heritage/arts and health/social care bodies to provide ‘culture therapy’ for people with mental health problems. Below are some of their projects.
- Human Henge
Pilot project about archaeology, mental health and creativity. Regular group sessions where participants and carers learn about pre-history and nature alongside curators, archaeologists and musicians, with opportunities to contribute creatively.
Evaluation report here: https://humanhenge.org/2019/01/30/human-henge-evaluation-report/
- Burgh Castle
Like Human Henge, this project is about archaeology, mental health and creativity. Regular group sessions where participants and carers learn about pre-history and nature alongside curators, archaeologists and musicians, with opportunities to contribute creatively.
- Change Minds
Change Minds is an archival project for people from North Norfolk and Norwich who live with mental health conditions and are on low incomes, carers, volunteers and staff.
- Culture Quest
A music programme for around 20 people with complex mental health needs living in supported housing in Norwich, who meet weekly to explore cultural passions.
House of Memories
Dementia awareness programme delivered by National Museums Liverpool
Florence Nightingale Museum
Works closely with Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust taking objects and their Florence Nightingale character onto the wards and also helping older patients gain confidence on their journey to going home by visiting the museum.
Catalyst Science Discovery Centre & Mind Halton
Project to explore how engagement in science can have positive benefits for people experiencing mental health difficulties. We run short courses (e.g anxiety) that blend CBT & science activities in the museum.
Encountering the Unexpected
An innovative two-year action research project that set out to challenge the (unconscious) assumptions that museums make about older people and find new approaches to engaging them with natural heritage collections.
Happy Museum Project
Through research, networking and training this project looks at how the museum sector can respond to the challenge of creating a more sustainable future. Website includes many case studies of projects.
Birmingham Museums and Galleries
Run programmes that support wellbeing for those that need it most including adult and young carers, adults and children on the autistic spectrum, adults with dementia and refugees,
York Museums Trust
A group of major arts organisations in York who have developed a cultural programme to help the older residents participate in a variety of artistic and cultural events in the city.
Inspiring Futures: Volnteering for Wellbeing
Volunteer training and placement programme delivered by the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), in partnership with IWM North and Manchester Museum.
Thackray Museum
A stitching for wellbeing series inspired by Lorina Bulwer, a women who was forced into the workhouse at the end of the 19th Century by her social and economic situation and a lack of understanding about her mental health.
Museums on Prescription
Connected lonely older people at risk of social isolation to partner museums in central London and Kent.
Manchester Museums and Galleries
‘Health and Culture’ was developed from the Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership, which provides creative arts for health programmes for the local community, hospital patients and staff. Projects include
Art Shed
Through social prescribing, Art Shed delivers creative workshops for people suffering from low level mental health problems. Evaluation of the Art Shed pilot by the Psychology department at the University of the West of England showed a marked decrease in feelings of negativity and an overall increase in wellbeing.
Bristol Museums are also working on becoming a Dementia Friendly venue.
Mindfullness at the Abbey
Kirstall Abbey hosts a yearly mindfulness festival with activities like yoga, walking, meditation and colouring.
Charterhouse
Free wellbeing lunchtime music events.
Craft in Mind
National Museums Northern Ireland developed a project to support mental health in parents of young children.
Stepping Into Nature
Aims to help older people of Dorset County (including those with dementia and their carers) be happier and healthier by connecting with nature.
Progress report here: https://www.dorsetaonb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stepping-into-Nature-Year-2-progress-report.pdf
Doncaster Museum
Outreach programme that aims to improve wellbeing and tackle isolation in the Doncaster area.
Journeys of Appreciation
Project is designed to engage in-patients and staff from older adult and dementia wards at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust in museum and gallery visits.
The programme has formed creative partnerships with Dulwich Picture Gallery, Horniman Museum, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
Impact Assessment for Tate Modern here: https://slam.nhs.uk/media/136737/Mental%20Wellbeing%20Impact%20Assessment%20(MWIA).pdf
Poole Museum
Online Creative Wellbeing session used on 5 Ways to Wellbeing.
Aldershot Museum ‘Combat Stress Exhibition’
Displayed work produced by military veterans as part of a series of creative wellbeing workshops. This was in collaboration with the charity Combat Stress.
Pallant House Gallery
Creative workshops that develop their artistic skills and help build confidence and new relationships.
Outside U.K. or International
The Glucksman
Empowers young asylum seekers, refugees and migrants to participate in projects that enable them to present their voices in the public realm.
Studio i
Advise and share knowledge with museums who want to make their museums more accessible and inclusive.
The Empathetic Museum
Collective work of museum professionals dedicated to a more inclusive future for the museum industry.
Empathy Museum
A series of participatory art projects dedicated to helping us look at the world through other people's eyes. Projects include ‘A Mile in My Shoes’, ‘A Thousand and One Books’ and ’Human Library’.
Centre for Empathy and Visual Arts
Research project to explore practices for fostering empathy and global understanding through the power of art.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Education and Art Therapy programme and created a scientific committee dedicated to art and health.
* The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), White Paper 2016, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/510798/DCMS_The_Culture_White_Paper__3_.pdf
* World Health Organisation, https://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/constitution
* 5 Ways to Mental Wellbeing, https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/improve-mental-wellbeing/
* If you are interested in learning more about this, check out this free UCL course 'Culture, Health and Wellbeing: An Introduction': https://www.ucl.ac.uk/short-courses/search-courses/culture-health-