Headway Devon provides an update on its creative journaling project
Last year, Headway Devon was awarded a small grant as one of the recipients of the Devon Mental Health Alliance Innovation Fund (currently paused). Click here to read our post about the grant published in April 2023.
Last month, Headway Volunteer Assistant Hannah Blatchford shared an update on the charity’s creative journaling project, which was supported in the Exeter area specifically by the grant. Below, we have shared a few highlights and photos from the update, which illustrates the impact the project has had on people who have experienced brain injuries.
All content which follows was adapted from Hannah’s report.
Purpose of the project
This project aims to support individuals with communication difficulties after brain injury who find it impossible to join normal social groups and situations due to loss of language or speaking skills. This forces them into becoming very isolated and reliant on carers, and has a hugely negative impact on their recovery and overall wellbeing.
The long-term aim is to support members to rebuild confidence, wellbeing and self-esteem through working on creative journals that could be completed at home, out in public spaces, and also in drop-in support groups. The project aims to encourage individuals to use different types of 2D creative expression including drawings, paintings, cut-out images, photos, and words to explore and express immediate and underlying emotions, thoughts, and ideas.
The members benefit from being able to work on creative journals independently, with a sense of confidentiality and freedom of honest expression, and also by working with a highly supportive drop-in group that meets their communication needs (including loss of verbal and written language) and through working with peers on the same project to create something together as a group to boost self-esteem and social integration.
Achievements so far
The members have found the flexibility of the creative journal project highly beneficial. They are able to choose their own method of using the journals which meets their own unique needs for expression. The group are highly supportive of each other and this has created a great bonding experience, as they all work to learn the new skills and help others.
The guided drop-in groups have helped offer ways to get started, and ideas to grow the journals and ensure they are supporting positive recovery. For example, we recently did a guided session of fast 10-minute portrait drawing. We wanted members to grow more confident with simple sketching skills and how they can be used to quickly and easily capture the essence of a person, object or scene in just a few simple pen marks. Members could then feel more confident sketching ideas or capturing unique moments in their lives, using a more personal connection than just taking a photo on their phones.
Feedback from members
“I go to lots of coffee shops with my wife and friends. I cannot follow the conversation much and sometimes feel left out. I take my journal now and try and sketch a few lines, or I will collect a card or leaflet from the shop and stick it in my journal. It helps me remember where I have been and interesting things like trams that I saw whilst I was there. I don’t feel like I am just sitting there when I have my journal out in front of me, it helps me feel better when I can’t join in the conversation.”
We have also benefited from drop-in artists at our guided groups to offer inspiration on new ways to express ourselves creatively in our diaries. We recently explored a very simple art form shown to us by artist Yuki, which used finger painting to create pictures, shapes and words. This has been very helpful to members with limb weakness after brain injury, who struggle to hold pens and brushes, and have been finding it difficult to work on the journals independently.
“I enjoy meeting the different artists at the group. They are very kind and spend a lot of time helping me to understand and work on different painting skills and things. I have learnt a lot from them, and am very proud of some of the work I make with them.”
Conclusions
We have also found that the creative journal project has been effective in improving metacognition and assisting members in developing new and well-embedded skills, which promotes movement through unfounded perceived inabilities and improves overall confidence and wellbeing.
Members reported feelings of lack of confidence at the start of the project when faced with a blank journal to complete, and a sense they just ‘weren’t going to get it’. The guided sessions have been essential to offer inspiration and peer support to get started, and as the weeks progressed a significant improvement occurred in how confident the members were in using the journal, and how pleased they were with their own unique progress.
Members have been able to practice new skills such as sketching at home and are able to retain learnt skills from the previous weeks. They enjoy thinking of new ideas at home for the journals and came ready to the guided sessions to share ideas, build on learnt skills and try new skills to improve their work and achieve their creative ideas.