Research team: Professor Gillian Hundt, Dr Sheila Galloway, Claudette Bryanston, Dr Maria Stuttaford

Rosetta Life is recognised as a UK leader in delivering innovative arts activities to those receiving Palliative Care.  It gives opportunities for creative expression to people with life-threatening diseases.  This involves a variety of art forms and different platforms to share their output, from live events in the hospice community to dissemination on-line.  The programme has drawn on acclaimed artists, working with hospice users.  The NHS Pan-Birmingham Palliative Care Network is supporting Rosetta Life activities with an evaluation of this work, focusing on four partnership projects in 2008-09.  These are:

• ‘Telling’:  a drama project involving three hospices and Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
• ‘Seriously Playful’: Two movement projects with the MS Respite Care Home in Warwickshire and Rainbow of Hope, an Asian community forum for people living with MS, and ‘Movement in Still Life’, a partnership with service users living with Motor Neurone Disease.
• ‘Night and Day’:  A documentary film about living with life-threatening disease around the clock.

This collaboration between the University of Warwick’s Institute of Health and the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research includes a freelance theatre director and an established independent researcher in health and social care.

The project will take account of recent research and evaluation in the area of the arts and health and end-of-life interventions.  The multi-disciplinary team will

• evaluate the impact on the health and well-being of participants in Rosetta Life activities
• evaluate the artistic process and merit of these
• seek to understand the process of participating in these activities for participants, families and artists
• assess the effect of performances on the audience.

Methods include using a quality of life instrument, participatory learning events, interviews with different participants, carers, staff and artists, observation and feedback from audiences and staff. 

Contacts:

Gillian Hundt                        Gillian.Hundt@warwick.ac.uk

Sheila Galloway                   Sheila.Galloway@warwick.ac.uk 

Claudette Bryanston           C.Bryanston@warwick.ac.uk

Maria Stuttaford                  Maria.Stuttaford@warwick.ac.uk

 

Publications

Hundt, G., Galloway, S., Bryanston, C. and Stuttaford, M. (2009) Social Arts Practice with People Living with Serious Illness:An Evaluation of the Work of Rosetta Life in the West Midlands, Report, Coventry: University of Warwick.

Final Report