Arts For Health: West Cork with E.R. Murray

Arts for Health Partnership Programme is based in West Cork and provides a managed and integrated arts programme for older people in healthcare settings.

The programme takes place in twelve geographically widespread rural locations including Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, five Day Care Centres: Bantry, Castletownbere, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Schull, Skibbereen; five Community Hospitals: Castletownbere, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Schull, Skibbereen, Bantry General Hospital, Care of the Elderly Unit and more recently at home.

The delivery of the programme is through an Arts for Health artists’ team managed by West Cork Arts Centre. The artists have established a close, professional working relationship with the staff and management of each care setting. Each with distinctly different practices, they have developed their professional expertise in working with older people and numerous individual and collaborative projects have been undertaken since the programme began in 2005.

Arts for Health Partnership
Arts for Health, West Cork is underpinned by an inter-agency partnership between West Cork Arts Centre, Cork County Council’s Arts Office, Cork Education & Training Board and Cork and Kerry Community Healthcare. Cork and Kerry Community Healthcare (Health Service Executive, HSE) is represented by the Community Work Department, the Nursing Directors of Community Hospitals and Social Care, specifically the Day Care Centres, West Cork.

Arts for Health Programme
Access to and engagement with the arts in healthcare settings improves the quality of life for the individuals in residential and service users. It encourages conversation, choice and links the individual with the wider hospital community. By being integrated into the culture of the care setting, the programme allows ideas and the individual creative interests of the participants to be nurtured and developed over time.