Making Well: A Realist Evaluation
"I arrived exhausted from 'hanging on' in the 'outside world'. It was good to see that I found plenty of energy and humour within myself despite being in a very tricky life situation. Feeling so much lighter and better now. It feels as if I am finally building resilience. I'm more able to ask for help, and more aware of when I need to. The shift from can't do to can do. My anxiety has mellowed. Everyone has 'stuff' no matter what it is. We all have our own things to manage. Part of the healing is to realise that I'm not alone."
This grant has helped us to create three new Making Well Communities in Ystradgynlais, Crickhowell, and Rhayader where we have completed 96 sessions for 428 beneficiaries throughout 2024 including people living with dementia, neurodiverse children and young people and children, and adults from deprived rural communities. Our eight-week Making Well course inspired a range of co-produced community engagement including crafters’ cafes, a gardening club and community kitchen, a summer camps for carers, and workshops for carers and healthcare practitioners. Our Making well courses were run by three teams of local artisans working with healthcare practitioners and health services. In total, we have supported 28 artists and craftspeople to work with a range of material including wool, dried flowers, oils, pastels, charcoal, stone, earth, wood, leather, willow, clay and much more. The opportunities for local volunteers and young graduates from the Black Mountains College to therapeutically engage in green arts and crafts has shown us that outdoor learning correlates with enhanced outcomes in wellbeing, concentration, behaviour, memory, and confidence with the added dimension of nurturing connectedness with nature and landscape.
Making Well has previously generated expert-led, independent evidence showing exceptionally high social value. This has been further reflected in the 50% improvement in participant mental wellbeing achieved through our programme based on validated questionnaire measures and complemented by ethnographic studies resulting in our Good Practice Guide and Practices of Change study. With this grant we partnered with the University of South Wales as our academic partner to undertake a realist evaluation and programme theory, which demonstrated statistically significant results in the South Wales Social Wellbeing Scale, the Profile of Mood States, and the Watts Connectedness Scale.
We are looking forward to seeing the full published report later this year and would like to thank the Arts Council Wales for its generous support and the Wales School for Social Prescribing Research for its diligent and excellent support.
