Far apart but close at heart: How do arts organisations in Latin America support the mental health of young people online during a global pandemic?

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BackgroundResearch shows that pandemics can trigger mental distress (including depression and anxiety) particularly in young people. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent problem for mental health in young people, especially those living in large cities and already facing challenges linked to poor mental health. Community arts organisations play a vital role in promoting mental wellbeing, by supporting young people using specific art forms. Through current research, we have formed strong links with five arts organisations in four Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru). The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social distancing measures have forced these organisations to move their activities online to ensure that they continue to support vulnerable young people through this time of crisis. This ongoing situation provides an ideal opportunity to study how arts organisations are re-inventing their programmes to continue supporting young people during a global pandemic. This includes examining the impact of these changes on arts workers, and how young people are experiencing this new way of connecting with their peers, arts organisations and communities.ObjectivesThe overall aim is to explore how arts organisations (in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá and Lima) are using online platforms to support the mental health of young people during a global pandemic, and how young people and arts workers experience this change. Specifically, we aim to:1) Examine how arts organisations have adapted their activities to use online platforms due to COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures2) Explore how this shift to online activities is experienced by art workers3) Explore how this shift to online activities is experienced by participants (aged 18-24)4) Understand how young people are dealing with the changes in their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic5) Build research capacity in community arts organisations6) Strengthen an existing network of five community arts organisations in Latin AmericaMethodsSix distinct activities will address the project aim and objectives. We will collect data to examine how each arts organisation has moved their activities online due to the COVID-19 lockdown (Activity 1), including how activities were set up and used. We will use routinely available records and interviews with key people in the arts organisations. At each arts organisation, we will conduct 10 interviews with stakeholders and arts workers (Activity 2), and 10 interviews with participants of the organisation (Activity 3), asking how they have experienced the shift to online activities. An online survey with a larger number of participants will explore specific experiences raised in the interviews. Each arts organisation will implement a creative workshop with 5-10 participants (Activity 4) based on a specific art form. These workshops will produce a creative output, such as a digital play, a rap, or choreography, to narrate young people's experiences of how COVID-19 and social distancing measures affected their lives and how they dealt with this. We will train researchers from arts organisations where necessary (Activity 5), and support this existing network of organisations to continue sharing knowledge and experiences (Activity 6).Expected resultsThis project will lead to new knowledge that will help arts organisations and others like them, to respond to future emergencies so that they can seamlessly continue to support the mental health of young people, even through a global pandemic. As we expect that these changes will continue when the pandemic subsides, our findings will therefore inform how arts organisations promote mental wellbeing into the future to reduce the burden of common mental disorders for young people. We will disseminate the findings and creative outputs to ensure wide impact and beneficiaries in our partner countries and beyond.