The Therapy of Art

Recently we had the opportunity to speak with A New Day UK, an organization located in Blackpool/Lancashire, UK that aims to ensure that the outcomes of the Every Child Matters initiative are attained on a community level by providing a quality structure of assessment, training and fun. We spoke with them about their mission, the effect they have had on their community, and how art therapy has helped with some of their programs.

Starving Artist: Can you tell me about A New Day UK? What is your mission and how do you achieve it?

New Day UK: A group of eight women have joined forces to establish a St. Annes-on-the-Sea based Community Interest Group. A NEW DAY UK CIC was originally founded by local woman Dawn Armistead to encourage community engagement through creative activities in order provide solutions to community issues. Our mission is ensuring that the outcomes of every child matters are embedded in the community of Blackpool and Lancashire. We are all children as we all have parents. We aim to achieve our mission by working in association with others who provide high quality Health and Social care activities, assessment and training to a recognized standard.

Starving Artist: What forms of art education and art therapy do you utilize?

New Day UK: The debut project 'Hands Around The Family - A Fruitful Event' is a model of how we use art with therapy . The project which involves children, babies, grandparents, mums and dads having their hands cast in plaster, from which a fruit bowl will be created. Throughout the event fresh fruit smoothy experiments take place alongside discussions on how to use fruit to make delicious healthy drinks and activities undertaken as a family.

A New Day UK CIC recognizes that building and maintaining communities by helping families works best if it is fun. A New Day UK CIC wants to extend beyond the local area and support Lancashire based artists, musicians, health and youth workers and sports practitioners, with the hope of developing a national model for projects that can improve local communities that encourage local participation. All we want to do is get people together and create something that will be of real benefit. In short we want to give people something to do together that they can take with them, be it a work of art, a song, a new friendship or a sense of community and be proud of it.

Starving Artist: What kind of a response have you gotten from your community and how do you feel you've directly impacted the lives of the members of your community?

New Day UK: Vicky Wells, Strategic Interface Manager for Families, Health and Well-being is undertaking the monitoring and evaluation of this project and has said “A New Day are a truly unique and inspirational organization, combing arts and therapeutic interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes for children, young people and families they work with to support early intervention and engagement is phenomenal.” The ‘Hands Around the Family’ gatherings on Grange Park and Talbot and Brunswick, Blackpool have proved a real success. Not only did they attract far more interest than expected from others, it received tremendous feedback from the families that attended, several of whom are volunteering to arrange their presentation event.

We have impacted people in the community be giving them access to something they had previously not had the opportunity of doing, by building social networks, by raising creative aspirations and engagement in creativity as well as using it as a therapeutic outlet to discuss family issues and identify solutions

Starving Artist: What can people do to help out the New Day UK cause?

New Day UK: Anything – A New day UK works on your skill and self -identified goals of personal development. We also use a blended skills approach to teams that allow for best practice and creative development of projects. Spread the word, volunteer, identify what it is they care enough about to make a change too and work towards each day.

A huge thank you goes out to A New Day UK for giving us their time for this interview. to find out more or to get involved please visit their website at http://anewdayuk.com/