Abstract:

This research paper focuses on research conducted at The University of South Wales, Faculty of Life Sciences and Education, at the Glyntaf Campus, Treforest, Pontypridd, South Wales. The director of studies, Professor Carolyn Wallace and the academic supervisory team Professor Emeritus, David Pontin, Professor Steven Smith and Researcher Dr Sarah Wallace with special interests in Software Research Applications are instrumental in providing guidance for the work-in-progress that is conducted by Dr Susy Rogers. The Research aim is an investigation of the critical success factors for social prescribing “Art-on-Prescription" in Wales.
Social prescribing has been recognised in Wales as an important approach to improve population health. In 2020, Welsh Government committed within the ‘Connected Communities: A strategy for tackling loneliness and social isolation and building stronger social connections’ to further support the development of social prescribing across Wales through four key deliverables. In the past decade there has been a move towards clinicians prescribing more holistic lifestyle changes to patients as part of their healthcare treatment. This concept, known as social prescribing, includes referrals to community programs such as gardening, dance sessions or exercise groups including also creative and therapeutic Arts Workshops.
Dr Rogers to-date, implementing GroupWisdom™ software, has completed the first stage of the research “Brainstorming” using the focus prompt “A critical success factor in social prescribing Art-on-Prescription is . . .”, whereby 191 statements have been collected from 80 research participants, drawn mainly from the Wales School for Social Prescribing Research (WSSPR). These 191 statements have been found to be far too many for the next stage “Sorting”. This has proved to cause some difficulty in reducing them to 125 statements which the software is better able to cope with. At this stage research participants are asked to sort the statements into named piles of their own description, each participant being given the set of 125 statements to sort individually. The research team of “Critical Friends” (Project Advisory Group) has had a challenging task of assisting in the reduction of the 191 statements.
Up to date the research data promises to reveal those factors that underpin the potential success of implementing social prescribing “Art-on-Prescription” through referrals by local General Practitioners and Healthcare Link Workers in the 22 Counties in Wales. The research is seen to be of significance in corroborating other research conducted by members of WSSPR, under the leadership of Professor Carolyn Wallace, the founder.

Keywords:

Creativity, art-on-prescription, health, well-being, critical success factor, mental health social prescribing, GroupWisdom(TM) software, holistic lifestyle.