Sligo Care Homes Project

An arts and health project across six care homes in Sligo with artist Eamon O’Kane and supporting artist Chelsea Canavan, addressing the needs of activities coordinators and residents through the creative process. The artists investigate the needs of each care home, working with staff to explore stories and narratives that will inform the construction of a much needed creative toolkit to be used by care home activities coordinators in their daily work.

Following a series of initial site visits with lead artist O’Kane, Canavan has working throughout the summer with residents and staff in each care home, identifying their needs and gathering vital information for the development of the creative toolkits. With further visits planned for autumn, O’Kane has been invited as research Artist-In-Residence at The Model. Site visits to the care homes, workshops and a Training & Networking Day for activities coordinators are planned in the next phase of the project.

Following recent projects we have done in Sligo University Hospital and the wider Sligo community, our partners have increasingly valued the positive impact of the Arts in healthcare contexts, with staff at the hospital saying –

“Working with The Model has proven to be an extremely positive and healing  endeavour. Research investigating the link between creativity and well-being in patient populations has shown that the arts can promote the overall health and positive outcomes of patients. Arts and arts engagement has been shown to improve mood, reduce stress and has had positive learning effects."