A week of creative training as part of the Erasmus+ project CREATE – Creative Therapy in Europe, was held in Liverpool hosted by UK arts organisation SOLA ARTS from 23rd – 27th January 2017. The activities were implemented in diverse and highly recognised art and socio-cultural places across the city of Liverpool: Tate Liverpool (World famous and most popular gallery of modern and contemporary art outside London), Toxteth Town Hall (community resource promoting the physical, social, cultural and economic betterment of the Toxteth area of Liverpool), and The Baltic Creative CIC (a creative campus that provides space that meets the needs of the creative and digital sector).
The week-long training was full of sharing and creative experiences in different art-therapies disciplines: movement therapy was implemented by CESIE, art therapy was introduced by SOLA ARTS (UK), Sementera Onlus (Italy) and Clonakilty Community Arts Centre (Ireland) and drama therapy was in charge of Compagnie Arti-Zanat’ (France) e Deutsche Gesellschaft für Theatertherapie e.V. (Germany). The Art Therapists showed their intervention techniques to their colleagues and in the next phase of project, their art therapy methods will be carried out with 60 migrants and refugees in total in the local communities of the partner countries.
During the stimulating training among art therapists and managers from all the partner organisations, participants had the chance to experience therapies from the clients’ point of view, exchanging new ideas that will form part of the curriculum for training modules for Creative Therapists.
Furthermore, many important moments were dedicated to reflection, not only within the group but also on an individual level, through artistic methods. For example, filling a personal diary with thoughts and feelings after each activity and thinking about how to apply them in the daily personal work with clients.
The next months of the project will be dedicated to the delivery of the research which will include a State of the Art Review on resettlement packages and then initial consultation with stakeholders and refugee and migrant communities through interviews and small focus groups in each partner country. At the same time, partners will develop the therapeutic interventions at local level with migrants and refugees using arts therapies.
The next partnership meeting will take place in May in Berlin hosted by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Theatertherapie e.V. The meeting will focus on the planning of supervision between all the Art Therapists, share results from the research and support the preparation of the piloting phase.
CREATE is a two year project co-funded by the KA2 – Strategic Partnerships for ADULT Education Action, of the Erasmus+ programme and brings together 7 organisations from UK, Italy, Germany, France and Ireland with specific expertise in the development of training programmes, creative therapies, refugee and migrant support and mental health services.
For further information about the CREATE project, please contact: rosina.ndukwe@cesie.org.
