Impact | Arts & Mental Health
ARTS & MENTAL HEALTH : SERVICE SUSTAINABILITY
PROJECT
Aims of the Project
Watermans has delivered arts and mental health services for 9
years, largely funded through grants from trusts and foundations
and small contracts with West London Mental Health Trust. As
the commissioning of our service transfers to GP consortia, we need
to ensure we are ready to meet GP needs and expectations.
The aims of the project are to:
1. provide a participative arts programme which contributes to
the recovery of people with mental illness
2 develop robust evidence of the benefits delivered by the
service
3 develop Watermans' capacity to sell its service to GP
consortia
Project evaluation
A robust evaluation of the project is integral to its purpose,
aims and intended outcomes and will form the basis of Watermans'
promotion of its arts and mental health service going forward.
In order to satisfy the requirements of GPs, we will recruit a
specialist health Researcher to undertake a thorough, independent
evaluation of the project.
The GP Adviser to the Project will essentially provide project
assurance that the evaluation framework and methodology developed
by the Researcher will produce evidence that will be acceptable to
GPs.
We will develop final intended outcomes and outcome indicators
for the participants with the Researcher and the GP Adviser to the
Project as part of the evaluation framework.
The researcher will develop the evaluation methodology and
materials for the project, with input from the GP Adviser. We
have assumed, at this stage, that the methodology will be based on
'participant observation'. This would be likely to
include:
- baselining of each participant's starting position (individual
interviews with each participant)
- 'participant observation' (ie, the Researcher attending each
workshop session as an integral part of the group, and writing up
notes each week)
- end-of-project interviews with each participant
The Researcher will be retained to undertake follow-up
interviews with participants 6-months and 12-months after the
completion of the project to assess the longer term impact of the
project.
The evaluation will be used to produce case studies of the
individuals participating in the project, and a summary report of
the group benefits from the project.
Watermans' business development
The following indicators will be used to assess the achievement
of the intended outcomes for Watermans' business development:
- service benefits are evidenced in the evaluation report and
case studies produced by the specialist health Researcher
- GP acceptance of the evidence of results delivered by the
service (confirmed by the GP Adviser to the Project)