Inspirative Arts attended the ‘Better Health Event’ and presented a Theatre in Education (TIE) performance that focused on hospital experiences. We worked with our Fun Friday clientele to create and perform the TIE piece. The ‘Better Health Event’ aimed to look at all the issues relating to health for people with learning disabilities.

Mencap released a campaign in 2007 - ‘Death by indifference’ - a report about  institutional discrimination within the NHS, and  people with a learning disability getting poor healthcare. The report included real life stories and Inspirative Arts used one of these stories to help create the TIE performance.

We devised and wrote our own script which included an interactive section at the end. We used poetry written by Tracey Cullen and created a voice over with our client group. The aims and objectives for our piece were:

Inspirative Arts worked collaboratively with Artcore and facilitated a ‘friendship’ themed workshop that used the art medium of sand casting. Artcore deliver community art projects that use fine art skills and focus on the aesthetics of the final products. Coming together as organisations, we were able to focus on the creative process as well as the final product.

We supported the Derby City Learning disabilities Partnership Board by creating sand casts which could be presented at the opening event for the ‘Ambassadors office’ at Revive Healthy Living Centre. The ambassadors who work for the partnership board are very enthusiastic about friendship and take the theme very seriously in their line of work. We used this in the sand casting workshops to help adults with learning disabilities learn and develop their understandings of ‘friendship’.

The event was open to the general public and was a part of the ‘Mapping Alternative Derby’ – A festival that celebrates and helps small alternative organisation become aware of each other.

The workshop was a great success, everyone appeared to enjoy the creative process as well as seeing the end product.

How we did sand casting:

In July 2009 Inspirative Arts delivered Creative Expressive workshops for adults with learning disabilities as a pilot test. The aim of this pilot was to recognise what the needs are for people with learning disabilities and whether our creative approach had a place in the market.

We were supported by Derbyshire Advocacy Service, Revive Health Living Centre and Derby City Learning Disabilities Partnership Board. Working together we found adults who have learning disabilities to participate in our workshops every Friday for 3 consecutive months.

During one of the workshops one of the clients spontaneously expressed that the workshops should be called ‘Fun Friday’, which we decided to use from then on. See the Fun Friday page for more details.

The pilot test helped us discover that many adults with learning disabilities are:

• Socially excluded in society.
• Not always treated like adults.
• Most of the time treated for their disability and not for who they are as individuals.
• Not always given the time and space to express how they feel.
• Not always listened to.
• Using their carers to communicate to other people who have learning disabilities.
• Often unconfident about being themselves and behaving naturally.
• Experiencing difficulties in understanding their feelings.
• Experiencing loneliness and want more friends.
• Not encouraged to express how they are feeling in different ways.
• Taught one specific way and have no opportunity to explore their imagination.
• Not always given the opportunity to explore and discover their talents.
• When given the opportunity, are more than capable in expressing themselves.

From our findings we realised there is a place for our workshops and we are aiming to improve all of these things in our workshops. So far our workshops have:

• Created friendships and strong bonds.
• Improved and developed communication – our clients have started to communicate directly to one another rather than using their carers.
• Improved well-being – carers are commenting on how happy their clients are in the workshops and how this reflects at home.
• Helped clients to understand their feelings and to identify them.
• Improved clients’ skills within the arts.
• Developed clients’ confidence.
• Provided a safe space for clients to socialise and to be listened to.
• Treated our clients like adults.
• Provided part time employment for an identified adult with learning disabilities.
• Developed clients imaginations.
• Encourage individual expressions to enhance acceptance.
• Given clients the opportunity to explore who they are and what they enjoy doing.

Also we found that:

• Funding is difficult to get to make our workshops more affordable or free.
• Carers have a big influence on the choices of activities clients will do.