Sir Robert Peel Hospital

I approached Sir Robert Peel Hospitals Arts for Health department. The hospital looks after inpatients with acute mental health problems such as depression and schizophrenia and use the arts for health department to run workshops and therapy sessions using art to develop peoples participation, interaction and confidence. I thought this would be perfect in gaining more teaching experience in a totally new environment.

They invited me to help observe and deliver some sessions with them.

Initially I observed and helped run a simple pottery session with clear instruction. To begin with we handed out clay to each of the patients, we didn't give any instruction and this became very unorganised and many patients struggled with lack of direction and lost interest very quickly.
We had a break where I used some images off the internet to make a short video tutorial of how to make a simple coil pot for patients to follow. This did help a couple of patients who repeatedly watched the video and tried to follow instructions. Others became very frustrated as they struggled to follow instruction and became more frustrated with others who were able to follow instruction.

 It was so much more challenging than I first anticipated and it was really difficult initially to get the attention of the patient and then to maintain their concentration and keep them engaged. People wandered in and out, ruined other peoples work, would only sit for a minute and some would just stand and observe.

Unfortunately due to the nature of the hospital I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of the patients enjoying the sessions.

Pottery Session - 19/03/2014 (3 hours)

On discussing my feedback of the workshop with the Occupational Therapist and expressing the difficulties I found I was invited to an open day for MoCa (The Model Of Creative ability) which is being implemented into the NHS and  is designed to create more of a structure on delivering workshops and therapy sessions. It is about assessing patients and their level of creative ability. This way once these levels have been assessed workshops will be specific to patients needs and different activities created for different abilities so that nobody will feel inferior or superior.

09/04/2104 (7 hours)

We visited the centre of excellence in Northampton. I took some photographs of examples of activities they were already using.

The day contained all of the information regarding the patient assessments and implementation of the model. The Occupational Therapists delivering the course explained that activities needed to be simple with clear step-by-step instructions for assessment so that the way in which they followed the steps could be analysed. Other activities have to be simple but not childlike as some patients can feel patronised and can become aggravated if they feel like they're being treated like children even if the activity is still too complicated for them.

I did feel that some activities shown were still fairly childlike and definitely found that this was the hardest thing to think about and create the right balance.

Today I gained a lot more information to help me understand the model that the NHS are aiming to implement into Occupational Therapy Units. I felt priviliged to attend the MoCa open day as it gave me an enormous insight into how the NHS works and the creative opportunities within that.
Having already done one session without this model I understand even more how much this is necessary and with more direction hopefully more success. I am going to help put some similar workshops together and create some step-by-step activities which will be used as assessment and workshop activities.
During the open day I was told about the opportunity of being an Activity Coordinator within the NHS which I didn't realise was a job that existed. It consists of helping implement models such as MoCa, creating and organising the activities that take place in various different sessions, organising trips and contacting external companies who provide specialist workshops such as pottery, sports days, musicians  etc. This is something that I will research into further as it definitely sounds like a career path that I would like to go down. 

First workshop using MoCa (4 hours)

To be able to implement the model we first of all had to create some assessment activities. We were told at the open day that these should be activities that the patients are unlikely to have done before.

We scoured the internet for different ideas...

Crochet

Newspaper weaving

Salt dough

We then found these paper beads. I was told that jewellery making is already very successful at the hospital however at present they use bought beads and thread these onto strings to create bracelets and necklaces.

The OT's thought that if they could make the beads as well this would be a success.

I researched online how to make them and was asked to create some simple step-by-step instructions so that this could be used as the first activity for assessment.

After the success of the coil pot video I made a short video with instructions.

We have used this once so far, the patient being assessed was 22 years old. She had suffered abuse, self harm, brain damage and had learning difficulties. The experience was amazingly rewarding. I was allowed to be involved in the assessment and guided her through the instructions of how to make the bracelet. First of all I took with me the example that I had made which she really liked. Initially she was very shy and just wanted to go back to her room. I made a cup of tea and sat with her while she began to make. Due to an unsteady hand she just made the beads using a straight strip of paper to create a circular bead. She began to get frustrated at the glueing stage as this is quite fiddly but with some guidance she created some really successful beads. She began to make conversation even leading to asking me to be her friend. Altogether she successfully made 5 beads in a couple of hours. She would compare them to mine and say they weren't very good but for her it was a real achievement. Her assessment results showed her being at active participation level meaning that with some guidance we were able to involve her and maintain her interest and she could follow instruction well. As a reward afterwards she spent a little while with a pat dog who visits the patients in hospital. She was so happy.

This experience for me was actually quite difficult, it opened my eyes to difficulties that people face but also was really rewarding as I felt that she has really achieved something and that I had been a part of that. I am going to continue to volunteer there throughout the summer and definitely going to look into activity coordinating and being able to work with more people like her.