Distanced Arts: Investigating the design, delivery, and impacts of Entelechy Arts' Staying Connected Programme

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On-going concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic (severe illness, changing distancing restrictions, second-wave of pandemic) present an increased risk for social isolation (reduced contact friends and/or family; loss of relationships, exclusion from society), which can have a disproportionately negative impact on health and well-being particularly among older adults. Given the uncertainty around the course of the pandemic, remote solutions that help older adults to stay connected are needed. In collaboration with Entelechy Arts, this project will consider one such solution, a distanced arts intervention - Staying Connected - from the perspective of service providers and users. Across two work packages (WP) we will use semi-structured interviews to understand service providers' (staff, artists, volunteers) experiences of distanced arts design and delivery (n=15; WP1), and conduct a longitudinal quantitative survey (2 time-points over 6 months) assessing whether there are changes in participants' isolation, health, and well-being as a results of taking part in Staying Connected's programmes (remote radio show (n=30), creative activity boxes (n=30), choir (n=16), and other activity clusters (knitting, poetry; n=10); WP2). Deliverables and outputs include a practice report outlining guidelines and recommendations for service providers who seek to design and deliver distanced arts, a virtual workshop to share the learning about practice with relevant stakeholders (arts organisations, councils, community members, government), an impact report detailing the effects of Staying Connected programme's on older adults' isolation, health and well-being, a virtual dissemination event to share the impact findings with relevant stakeholders, and two manuscripts for publication in high-impact academic journals.