Creativity In Care is a social enterprise set up by Karrie Marshall. Our social purpose is: ‘to improve quality of life, inclusion and joy in care and community settings’.
(It has taken many years to create that sentence!)
Our aims:
1. We promote mental well-being and creative care of people with experiences of mental ill-health & recovery; people isolated through culture or ability differences; people who use learning disability services; older people; people with dementia; staff; relatives and the general public
2. We promote equality and diversity; increase awareness and understanding of individual needs for positive, inclusive and creative connections
3.
We advance the education and creativity of professional and public people in care services and in the community, to benefit and strengthen community links for individual well-being
4. We seek to improve lives, increase joyful experiences and through creativity, support the voices of people who have traditionally been unheard
We do this through workshops, programmes, talks, films, exhibitions and soon-to-be book
Publicity about our previous work includes:
- Creative Minds – A creative programme with people living and working in a residential care setting for older people and people with a diagnosis of dementia. Read about the work ’Laughter,Tears and Amazing Grace 2011′ on Northings.com. The film ‘creative minds’ was shown at Eden Court as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival 2011
Can You See Me - A creative project with people using the services of Birchwood Highland for mental health support and recovery. This work was shown at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival 2010. The participants’ work was featured on STV News (begins at 14:09) and a wonderful article by Jeanne Beattie in Highland Life Magazine (pages 44 & 45)
In Our Own Voices 2009 - A narrative/story project involving over 150 people and using a variety of creative techniques to gather and interpret life histories, memories and experiences of life in long-stay hospitals in the Highlands. This work was shown at Centre for Health Sciences, Inverness. In Our Own Voices – Leaving New Craigs (review on Northings.com)
- Inside Outside – A puppetry & masks programmes with people using learning disability services about experiences of bullying & self esteem
We use many art forms in our programmes, and our speciality is puppetry. This has developed from our small touring puppet company Zenwing Puppets , with Chris King (right). Zenwing Puppets deliver family shows and community workshops in rural areas.
My background and ancestral past is in nursing. I also trained in person-centred counselling, and lectured in health & social care until 2009. I have always had a passion for creativity. For me, creativity is the essence of life, of living, and connecting. I am thrilled that more people are recognising the positive and powerful effects of being creative in care services.
We have delivered workshops, programmes, talks or exhibitions to the following:
- Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival
- Birchwood Highland
- Arts In Merkinch
- Health & Happiness
- NHS Highland
- Inverness College UHI
- Working For Families
- Barchester Healthcare
- Highland Council
- Sense Scotland
- Artlink Central
- Learning Disability History Research (Open University)
- Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability
- London School of Speech & Drama
- People First
- Stepping Stones (Milton, Kildary)
- Alzheimer Scotland (Tain)
- NHS Grampian
- Various other care settings
Being a social enterprise means we plough back surplus income from our services and products to deliver more services – to benefit more people. Creativity In Care receives advice, help and guidance from a range of people who work in or who use care services, and from people who know about social enterprises.
Our work can be matched to Scotland’s national outcomes for improving lives and mental well-being, promoting equality and diversity, and where possible, strengthening communities. Our personal voluntary work over the past few years has built high quality services, which we enjoy delivering.
We would like to thank the Macphail centre, Ullapool, Highlands for their enthusiasm and support of our work. They tell us that we enabled the staff and service users to continue engaging with more community art projects in the local care settings, which is great news.