Long-term care residents benefit from art therapy program
Residents of several long-term care facilities in southwest Saskatchewan have shared the creative joy of making art through an innovative art therapy pilot program. This initiative is the result of a partnership between the Art Gallery of Swift Current (AGSC) and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).
It started in 2018 when Camille Lesiuk, a senior recreation therapist at The Meadows in Swift Current, approached the AGSC with the idea of a partnership to provide art classes to long-term care residents.
“Here at The Meadows and at other places as well the residents have this little community,” she said. “They have their class, they build connections with one another, they have a sense of accomplishment seeing what they create in class and being able to show it off. It’s really beneficial, building confidence, building friendships, it works on their cognition and that sort of thing as well. So there are many benefits to it.”
The art program is similar to other initiatives in long-term care facilities to provide residents with opportunities for enrichment and interaction.
“Each program is tailored for residents and what they’re interested in, and who’s going to benefit,” she said. “So just like you and me, we have different kind of leisure lifestyles, we like different things. We try to offer different programs to different people, knowing that it’s based on their interest and their skill level.”
At the same time, the intention of each program is to be inclusive and to accommodate residents who are living with different health conditions.
“We try to adapt all of our programs for anybody and in the art program as well,” she said. “We have people that have high cognition and some that have dementia. We really adapt the program for them so that they’re able to succeed at it.”
AGSC Associate Curator Heather Benning is the coordinator of the art therapy program and she also presents classes at The Meadows. This initiative provided the AGSC with an opportunity to expand its existing connection with the local long-term care facility.
“We already hang art in The Meadows, so we already have a bit of a connection with them,” she said. “A lot of our long-term collection work lives in The Meadows and get changed out of there. So I think that was part of where they thought about the art gallery, and as the art gallery does offer classes frequently, it was kind of a natural fit. We had the educators and so we started doing that program.”
The art classes at The Meadows started in June 2018 and it soon became popular as more residents became interested in this initiative.
“We got more and more interest from the seniors living in the centre and they started really honing their skills,” she said.
The AGSC expanded the art therapy program in March 2019 to the SHA longterm care facilities in Eastend, Maple Creek and Shaunavon with Eastend artist Shon Profit as the lead instructor. The program was also introduced at the Herbert long-term care facility in April 2019 with local artist Maria Enns as the instructor.
The AGSC successfully applied for a one-year grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board to continue the pilot project in Eastend, Maple Creek and Shaunavon. This Artists in Communities grant will cover the program in these three communities until September 2020.
“Eventually what we will be looking for or hoping as the programs catch on, is that more places will be interested in sponsoring the program to help pay for our external staff or teachers,” Benning said. “We’ll definitely be re-applying to the Arts Board and hopefully we’ll be successful.”
She has personally witnessed the benefits of this program to participants at The Meadows, varying from an improvement in hand-eye coordination to the personal connections and friendship between them.
“I see their work improving constantly and I see them gain more confidence in their ability to make work,” she said. “A lot of times, when they first come into class, they’re worried that they’re going to waste the paper or the paint and that whatever they make won’t be good enough and then they start building confidence as they keep coming back. A lot of what we do as educators is to build confidence too, because if you’re enjoying your time it’s never a waste. So we see that, and also the community aspect within The Meadows, which is a very large facility. It’s a friend-making activity too and we really notice that. Everyone stops and visits with each other when they’re coming in and going out.”
A hallway in The Meadows is used to display the artwork of residents, and these works are changed on a regular basis to show the latest art. The program participants are really pleased to see their work on display.
Eastend artist Shon Profit believes in the power of art and she is delighted by how engaged residents have become in the three long-term care centres where she is delivering the program.
“We work really, really hard in this program to make sure that the projects have dignity,” she said. “So none of them are like child projects. We really are making art, and these people who didn’t feel that they could, are I think astounded and so pleased to find out that they can.”
It provides them with a sense of pride and it helps to combat loneliness, because they work in a group. From a cognitive perspective the creativity of the art program is a benefit to the health and well-being of participants.
“You get to tap into different parts of the brain and body where you hold memory, and that seems almost easier to access when a person is having trouble with short-term memory,” she said. “And it evokes conversation, because of what comes up for them while they’re doing the artwork. Often, when people are doing art in these classes, there are stories that go with it.”
She will constantly make changes to the program to accommodate the different needs of participants. There are participants with different levels of visual impairment, some have limited mobility and others might have limited speech or difficulty with short-term memory.
“So it’s creating equity, it’s creating opportunity for every person to be successful in the way that they can be successful,” she said. “So many people will come and say I’m not an artist and I’ll say we’re all creative, we all have the ability to be creative in some way, and no matter what we do in this class, I promise you, this is going to be successful.”
She felt the most challenging part of her role as a program instructor is to create a space for participants where they can feel confident to experiment and to see what they can do with their creativity. The program includes a variety of art projects, for example still life drawing, plaster and paint on canvas, painting sunrise and sunsets, scratch art, collage, creating images on black canvas, silk painting with dyes and salt, mask making, introduction to oil and chalk pastels, and making stamps and printing greeting cards.
“There is nothing out there online or in books that is a good reference for helping people with barriers to do art,” she said. “A lot of projects you find are those what I feel are very undignified, where the adults know they’re being treated as children. There are so many projects that can be done. You just have to figure out how to alter them to make them work for the individual, and it’s a challenge I love. … It’s not just about going in and doing art lessons. It is about improving their quality of life.”
Note: The interviews for this story were done before recent concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Saskatchewan. The provincial government introduced prevention measures on March 16 that restricted access to long-term care homes, hospitals, personal care homes and group homes to essential visitors only. Essential visitors mean immediate family visiting for compassionate reasons. The AGSC exhibition and art studio facilities in Swift Current have been closed until further notice and all education programs and art classes have been halted.