PART 6
Summary Conclusions Socially engaged practice for health and wellbeing Museums and art galleries can use their collections and facilities and the skills of their staff to engage vulnerable groups of people in ways which contribute to their health and wellbeing. In the Who Cares? projects, the work involves specially targeted projects in small groups. Such projects can extend opportunities for interaction with people and objects in ways that enhance a sense of cultural inclusion. This happens not only because participants have new experiences and opportunities for social interaction but also because interaction with museum collections in favourable conditions offers people the opportunity to find new cultural forms in which to express their experience. Personal experience can then be communicated to others. This is a distinctive contribution that museums can make to wellbeing which on the one hand draws on the nature of their collections and their symbolic cultural significance, and on the other hand the personal symbolic significance the collections hold for individuals. The key task for museum staff is in providing a relational environment in which the cultural and personal can be brought together. Relationships and skills Such work involves a sensitive appreciation of the specific needs of the groups involved. On the evidence from the Who Cares? programme, museum staff are well able to develop the skills required to work effectively with such groups. It is, however, relational work which involves emotional labour, and can sometimes take a toll on staff. It is therefore important that appropriate support structures are in place, to enable self-reflection and clarification of the difficult issues and decisions that may arise. There is further work to be done in determining what form this support should take as the clinical models of supervision used in health and social care would not be appropriate in a museum. There is also a case for using the experience of this programme to develop specialist training for museum staff and collaborating artists. Models of work The research identified three dominant implicit „modelsâ€&#x; for this kind of project work, and these models affect roles, goals, working relationships and expectations as to how groups will run and what they will produce. The dominant orientations are: education and learning, the provision of a therapeutic environment and creative workshops. Misunderstandings and conflict with partner agencies are most likely to occur when project staff are working to different models and these have not been clarified. Accessibility Despite to fact that some groups initially need encouragement and assistance to use the building, there are a number of ways of facilitating access. The key to accessibility is in providing participants with the opportunity to form relationships with staff, so that they have 72 | P a g e