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Workshop 2c: Away from words: Using art-making toalleviate death anxiety in the palliativecare workforce
Time:
Wednesday, 23/Oct/2024:
11:00am - 12:30pm
Location:Le Cap - Room "Arche/Refuge"
Language: English
Presentations
Away from words: Using art-making to alleviate death anxiety in the palliative care workforce
Jed Jerwood1,2, Gemma Allen3
1Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust, United Kingdom; 2University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; 3Mary Stevens Hospice, United Kingdom
Target Audience
Our research into equity-oriented, arts-based approaches to advance care planning particularly for people from marginalized communities has led to the development of a facilitator training programme and to date over 200 people have been trained to use the approach in their communities. One of the unexpected findings from the facilitator training has been the resistance amongst the palliative care workforce to thinking about their own wishes for end-of-life care. Death anxiety has been shown to be more prevalent amongst the people working with dying people. There are multi-faceted reasons for this – self-protection, dying becoming ‘business as usual’, and ‘them and us’ thinking. The target audience for this workshop is the wider conference community, many of whom have worked for a long time in this field. Less verbal methods, such as art-making, are a useful way to connect with feelings and break down personal resistance. Engagement in conversations about death and dying and personal mortality have been shown to alleviate death anxiety and compassion fatigue in the workforce.
Learning Objectives
Space and permission to experience engagement in self-inquiry regarding death, dying and mortality
First-hand experience of using less verbal, arts-based methods as a tool for reflection, learning and facilitation
Engaging together creatively as a collective conference community in conversations and visual inquiry to promote death literacy
Collective art-making – the creation of a collective art installation to be displayed during the conference
Structure of the Workshop
Introduction to background of method 15 minutes approximately
Themed art-making in response to structured questions 45 minutes
Group reflection following less verbal self-inquiry 30 minutes
Output: A collective artwork for and by the conference community
Note: Participants do not have to be good at art to participate. Participation in the collective art installation is voluntary.
