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Systematic Review
The authors state:
We looked at a set of ten creative projects funded by Spirit of 2012 between 2015 and 2023, in England, Scotland and Wales. The activities included making music, creative writing, dance, film-making, singing, art-making and crafts. The projects targeted people who were at risk of low wellbeing and loneliness, and set out to deliver improvements in wellbeing and other outcomes.
The projects all aimed to improve wellbeing, alongside other ambitions such as reducing loneliness and isolation, improving confidence, and increasing participation in arts, especially for excluded groups. We wanted to know which contexts and mechanisms were associated with these outcomes in these creative projects, so we could identify the pathways which could lead to wellbeing.
All the projects reported improvement in wellbeing and other outcomes using qualitative approaches. The outcomes that were most commonly reported include:
● improved positive mood and emotions, including joy and happiness, and peace of mind
● increased confidence and self-esteem, especially through a growing sense of personal achievement and new or improved skills. Some participants reported a decrease in confidence when the activities became more technically challenging.
● personal development and growth, including improved aspirations for the future
● increased social connection and friendship, and reduced loneliness.
Although the quantitative measurement of wellbeing wasn’t the focus of this case study synthesis, ONS4 data from a selection of projects can strengthen the insights from the qualitative evidence. We analysed four of the case studies’ quantitative data and found improvements in all four measures, with a slightly greater change in Anxiety and Life Worthwhile measures. Many projects reported challenges in using the ONS4 and other quantitative measures in their learning. Several of them chose measures they considered more suitable for participants, or developed their own.
Personal wellbeing has provided common ground across Spirit’s funding strands, and this consistency has allowed for cross-cutting analysis of Spirit’s impact on wellbeing across different projects over time, especially using this common quantitative measure. But the evidence for ‘how’ and ‘why’ different projects achieved wellbeing outcomes is often hidden and isolated in the different project reports. The synthesis approach allowed us to identify these multiple pathways to wellbeing and demonstrate the complex way in which the ten projects created benefit. We began to draw out how certain pathways are more relevant for specific populations (in particular carers and disabled people). This approach to bringing together evidence from practice values the rich learnings of people who deliver activities in their own words. It adds depth and complexity to existing academic research and identifies how and why activities can lead to wellbeing. This makes this methodology a valuable tool for funders and policy makers to draw out valuable learnings from practice, so they can better support effective activities