Art to become a part of social and healthcare services
Northern Savonia has done pioneering work in developing cultural well-being services. The good work has been noted in other parts of Finland as well.
Arts Promotion Center Taike has just given The Kuopio University Hospital District Municipal Federation 180 000 euros for the Kulttuurisote (connecting cultural and social sectors) project which includes six regions. In addition to Norther Savonia the participating regions include South Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia, Pirkanmaa, Kymenlaakso, and the City of Turku from Southwest Finland.
The collaborative project of these regions examines how well-being services with a basis in art and culture may be registered in the documents which are used as directives for the service production of social and healthcare of these regions.
There is an aim to increase general knowledge and understanding among the leading social and healthcare professionals concerning the well-being benefits of art and culture in the daily life of the elderly, long-term patients and others with a weak status, for example.
From 2009 the Well-Being Power Plant of Eastern Finland (VOIMALA) has worked on the background of Kulttuurisote. The development leader of the collaborative network, Eeva Mäkinen, is pleased that the Kulttuurisote project got funding just now.
– We aim to spread the procedures which enhance well-being and health, which are already tried out in VOIMALA, wider into the counties and renewing region.
– We wish to advance taking methods with a basis in arts and culture as a part of the social and health services, especially among those clients whose cultural basic rights are already in a danger of being compromised, Mäkinen describes.
Music workshop and band activities
Cultural activities are known to increase the experience of success and meaning in life, having a positive impact in health and increasing the life expectancy.
VOIMALA network has been successful for example in the music workshops of the haematological and oncological pediatric ward of Kuopio University Hospital, which was started in 2013.
A music pedagogue from Kuopio Conservatory visits the ward on a weekly basis and holds the music workshops together with the ward’s psychologist. All the children who can come out of their rooms can take part in the music making together with their parents in the play area. To those who are confined into their rooms individual music workshops are arranged.
– The music workshop activity was enabled by the Kimmo Timonen charity benefit fund and later
established as a permanent activity. Experiences of the music workshop have been very positive, describes Jorma Penttinen, the chief of staff of Kuopio University Hospital.
Another example of the cultural and well-being services in Norther Savonia are the band workshops in the adolescent psychiatric wards. The youngsters choose their instruments and learn a new piece each time in practices which last 1,5 hours at longest. The band workshop activity serves also as complementary training to the psychiatric nurses attending the workshops as working pairs.
New professions are born
Director of development Eeva Mäkinen evaluates that on the long run utilizing art and cultural methods in different professions leads to the creation of a new kind of jobs and job descriptions. Utilizing one’s own interests may on the other hand increase job well-being of professionals and even lengthen career spans.
– One of the central aims and prides of the networking is collaboration which crosses educational fields and levels, in which we are already well advanced.
Well-Being Power Plant of Eastern Finland (VOIMALA)
- VOIMALA is a collaborative network which has operated since 2009. It develops well-being services
- Experience and know-how has been acquired from the TAKUULLA projects (7) done in
collaboration between Kuopio Conservatory and the City of Kuopio since 2012. - VOIMALA strenghens the collaboration between research and development as well as education and professional life in Northern Savonia.
- The aim of the Well-Being Power Plant is to expand and stabilize network collaboration to be a
permanent form of collaboration by 2020. - VOIMALA is administered by Kuopio conservatory, and it’s director is Esko Kauppinen, principal of Kuopio Conservatory. Eeva Mäkinen is its director of development.
- The collaborative network agreement was joined in 2018 Kuopio Conservatory, The City of Kuopio, The Kuopio University Hospital District Municipal Federation, University of Eastern Finland, Savo Consortium for Education, Kuopio Conservatory, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, University of Arts Sibelius Academy Kuopio Unit, Doctor Matthias Ingman’s Foundation and Tukipilari Reg. Assn. The collaboration is administrated by Kuopio Conservatory.
- The collaborative network agreement was joined in 2018 Kuopio Conservatory, The City of Kuopio, The Kuopio University Hospital District Municipal Federation, University of Eastern Finland, Savo Consortium for Education, Kuopio Conservatory, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, University of Arts Sibelius Academy Kuopio Unit, Doctor Matthias Ingman’s Foundation and Tukipilari Reg. Assn. The collaboration is administrated by Kuopio Conservatory.
- Kulttuurisote project started from the collaboration between VOIMALA networking and the national Taikusydän collaboration.
More information:
Director of development Eeva Mäkinen, tel. +358 45 1360 202, eeva.makinen@kuopionkonservatorio.fi
Takuulla projects and Well-Being Power Plant, Kuopio Conservatory