BAAT | Blog

BAAT | Blog
 From my research into Art therapy i came across BAAT blogs. this blog is additional information for me and others who are interested in Art therapy. its a very detailed and useful blog to look at.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: TOPIC: RESEARCH

Definition: Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses the creative process of making art to improve a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. 

Art therapy, sometimes called creative arts therapy or expressive arts therapy, encourages people to express and understand emotions through artistic expression and through the creative process.

The Free Dictionary

http://www.arttherapyblog.com/what-is-art-therapy/#.Vvvbsy1BTIU

Art for me has always been my “stay out of trouble” card. I remember when I was little if I got in trouble my grandma and granddad would have a “stern” word with me but then they would hand me a colouring book or let me watch art attack to calm down.

My granddad loved art. He was more fine art based where I'am textiles. But he was amazing. There house was full of his wonderful paintings. Wow. His work was truly incredible. I would love to have shown you his work. Anyway, I didn't get the best of grades in school and I couldn't get into sixth form because of my grades, it was clear I was a visual learning.. from that I got onto a level 3 BTEC in Art and Design.

During my time in college we had to think about jobs or further education doing our specialist subject... He mentioned about art therapy and how I would be good at it as I have the ability to talk to others confidentially and that people find it easy to open up to me. I liked the idea of communication through art, I heard of art therapy before and once looked into Art therapy it became very clear that it was something to bare in mind. 

http://www.baat.org/

"The British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) is the professional organisation for art therapists in the UK. It works to promote art therapy and provides professional support and advice to its members. The BAAT represents art therapy within national organisations and has a growing international profile.

The BAAT provides information to members of the public about art therapy Careers & Training and maintains a list of State Registered Art Therapists in private practice. The BAAT is also the learned society for UK art therapy and publishes a peer reviewed journal "The International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape" three times a year."

BAAT is a useful website to look into, its easy to navigate on and to find info that your needing and reading through the blog page it looks like a very useful guide to have, you can became a member of the BAAT. The BAAT welcomes qualified art therapists, art therapy trainees as well as individuals and organisations with an interest in art therapy.

A little further into college my grand parents started getting early stages of dementia, that illness took my granddads ability away, he didn't know he was an amazing artist, he didn't know how to draw those little funny men he used to draw me, he just didn't know, And that was a talent that had just disappeared. heart breaking.

From my personal experience I was really interested in how others would/could communicate through art. How others do it to communicate.. I took that on board and thought more into when we ask kids to draw a house? Well they do a square, bricks, windows, a pathway to the front door, a garden full of flowers even a cheeky little dog in there but then another child is more minimal. One window and no door, no pretty flowers or a dog. Well why? Is it because they don’t like to draw or are they unhappy? From that thought I wanted to know, I started to be more aware of my other groups drawings during college.. I started question them, why that colour palette? Why are you doing it so small and not big? Things like that, and how art to me and others was relaxing and expressionist.

Through the research from BAAT website and even googling art therapy, its quite common these sessions can be for group works and even some are 1:1  and they cater for Adults and even children with:

alcohol problems

Dementia / alzheimer  

kids in care

victims 

genders
 art therapy helps to make a positive difference in the life of many people who find verbal communication difficult.

Art therapists work with children, young people, adults and the elderly. Clients may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include emotional, behavioural or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, neurological conditions and physical illnesses.

Art therapy is provided in groups or individually, depending on clients' needs. It is not a recreational activity or an art lesson, although the sessions can be enjoyable. Clients do not need to have any previous experience or expertise in art.

During my research I came across CWB art therapy Manchester a organisation based in Manchester by a man called Christopher Whitehead-Baines (Chris). The link to his website is on the blog. All the info about Chris is on his webpage and what he does and what he has done. I contacted Chris for some information about where it all started for him, what interest him etc. Im taking this moment now to thank Chris for his kindness of giving me as much info as possible as it has boosted my research into art therapy.

 "university as a mature student to do a BA in Fine Art. I followed this with an MA in Art Psychotherapy (which you need to register and practice as as an art therapist). I was then fully qualified. " "The MA I did was with Leeds Met but based in Sheffield.... MA courses in Derby and Chester. All three of these places offer foundation courses that last around a week to give people a taste of the profession"

" To get on to the MA you usually need a degree in an art based subject and experience of working with mental health paid or voluntary. There can be some exceptions so I would advise to look at the individual universities for full details. "

"There is also the question of getting experience of working in mental health. I already had this but would recommend volunteering at an arts for health charity like Venture Arts or Start in Salford to gain some experience of how art can be used to improve mental health on a basic level. "

The info Chris has given me of the universities that do the Art therapy course and even extra that could get me more into the Art therapy world was very nice of him to give ad it was nice to hear about his progression into Art therapy. I feel I learn more knowing others backgrounds and stories (Personal Experience) I felt that Chris has given me the information to start getting more into art therapy by applying and signing up to places and even contemplating a MA. 

just from thinking about art therapy back in college and to now having a good source to refer to being Chris has developed my research more and has given me more and more knowledge and especially now as times are changing the Art therapy business is becoming more and more popular 

Chris website: http://www.cwbarttherapy.com/

Additional Information

Once qualified, art therapists need to be registered with HCPC who are the regulatory body for the profession and ensure all therapist on the register meet the standards necessary to practice effectively. It is also advisable to register with BAAT. It is illegal to offer art therapy without registration with HCPC.

 Link

HCPC http://www.hpc-uk.org/landing/?id=3

BAAT http://www.baat.org/

Northern Programme http://shsc.nhs.uk/service-a-z/art-therapy-northern-programme/

                                        http://courses.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/artpractice_ma

Chester Uni http://www.chester.ac.uk/postgraduate/art-therapy

Derby Uni http://www.derby.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/art-therapy-ma/

These additional links are helping me get more information into art therapy. 

To conclude all the information I have received has been copied from reliable resources from the internet, and the conversation with Chris was through my email address, 

I have chosen to speak about and research into art therapy the information I have gathered has influenced my choices into the educator unit and the additional information received is going to guide me further into Art therapy.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: URBAN ENVIRO VIDEO.

This video is what I filmed at the end.
The video shows all the kids amazing marks, coming together as one big Urban Environment. 
On the video you see two moths in the environment. (they were spare moths)
This video really captures what we imagined in the first place and the kids just did and amazing job of creating what we pictured as a group.

A huge thank you to Z Arts for letting us come in and run a workshop with the kids!

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: Z ARTS WORKSHOP

3pm meet @ Z Arts. 1 hour set up!

Feelings during the set up was relaxed, we had everything we needed.

Feelings about the workshop:

-          Hard.

-          Impressed

-          Enthusiastic

Key points:

-          Interactive

-          Creativeness

-          Knowledge

TABLE SET UP.

1st group

With the first group it was a little harder to get across what we were doing today. We showed the children the visual aids presented on the tables and on the wall to help guide them. What I never took into consideration was language, I found it hard to explain and to try and make our workshop even more simple, even presenting the aids it was hard for the younger ones to understand, but luckily some had older siblings there to help them and to explain what we was wanting to them to create.

Time wasn't on our side for the 1^st group as we didn't anticipate how hard it was going to be to explain what we was doing, so they did take a little bit of time which was no problem as some were very lovely detailed drawings.

2^nd group

With the second group I found that they were more comfortable, the 2^nd group were older than the 1^st group we had which I think that’s why they were more comfortable with what they were doing, the 2^nd group were more interactive very hands in! using all the tools we had, producing 2 pieces of work each! The enthusiasm from this group was brilliant, they loved it (very paint and ink happy) really detailed marks! Again time just flew by!

3^rd group

As we knew time was just going far to quick and this being the last group we thought to help them out we would create some quick marks as well and get stuck in ourselves!(which I loved doing! And so did the girls)

The 3^rd group seemed to know more of an urban environment, they understood it so much better so they got stuck in, making dark clouds of soot just like what happened with the moths. The 3^rd group just cracked on. From the 3^rd group just getting on we started to stick all the kids work on the walls whilst we had abit of time and even some of the kids started to stick there work up themselves. It started to really come together, I thought it looked really effective!

URBAN ENVIRO.

The workshop finished and the kids went and washed there hands etc. And to finish it off Hannah got the kids to get there peppered moth and asked them where they wanted to stick there moth.. at this point all the kids went over to the natural environment.

NATURAL ENVIRO. 

Looking at the moths stuck on the tree they made looked really good! I think the whole group was proud of how the whole workshop went and how good the kids were and how stuck in they got with it all! Being my first ever workshop I was buzzing of how well group 2 did and you can tell we did well as the kids were so happy with what they did!

BUT, always a but. we did have a little miss hap.. as i have mentioned the kids got really into the painting and ink, which is not the problem of them having fun but the problem was health and safety and some of the kids loved the ink and as we didn't have paint brushes as such allot of the kids used there fingers as paint brushes.. fingers and ink are not the best combination in all honesty. So yeah.. we had to tell the kids to not use there fingers with ink! 

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: EDLAB

Following that day was our first Edlab workshop.

To reflect on edlab I’m wanting to talk about the very start of that session of what I remembered and felt.

Remembering walking in and sitting down, the tutor started writing on the bored and I think it was meant to spell out quiet but I remember watching her when she wrote it and got confused of which way the I and the e went, just remember her having a little laugh to herself, she then wrote stuff like look etc. Then all a sudden the guy sat at the computer started flicking through this slide show... I’m literally sat looking at my notes as I tried to write down what he said...

·         Conventions in learning theory

·         Behaviourism theory

·         Stimuli and response to stimuli

·         Operant conditioning

·         Social cognitive – look, listen, learn

The bullet points being what I actually wrote down... yep. Gibberish. I did not have a clue what I wrote down and in all honesty I can’t believe I wrote down that. This is a mental note right now * DO NOT WRITE DOWN THINGS YOU DON’T HAVE A CLUE ABOUT* it’s just a waste of time and energy. BUT that whole intro was a set up!! (Jokes on us guys) no seriously that was a demonstration of how to not teach! They were rude, bland, blunt, and too fast.

It was horrible to watch, I think half of the girls gave up writing! As “creative” people that’s one way we don’t like to learn in a quiet, strict, disciplined environment.

It was how we were sat as well that they brought up that I didn’t notice, it cut us off, it was very old school of we are the teachers you sit and learn. Seriously hate that style of learning as you don’t learn!

From that it lead into how we could create a good, energetic learning environment. So we did a task called “Hack the space” creating a welcoming space, mannerisms when coming into the room, clear speech.

I loved the activity of hacking the space and found it very helpful and useful of how to teach.

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: GROUP TUTORIAL

General chit chat of how we all feeling about our workshop later today and our whole group seems calm and ready for it!

This tutorial is just a quick chat about the research task.

This blog post isn’t about the workshop we are about to do, it’s not a blog post reflecting that workshop... the key blog post is research. So its research basically! The key blog post could be about education the world of education... what interested me in this unit? Areas in art education?

OR

Research on workshop planning? How to plan a workshop? Workshops for under 11s?

·         Library educational journals

·         Different ranges of research

·         Check for reference copies.

·         Guardian education

·         Higher education – the times higher education

·         Appropriate sources

·         Referencing is alright but don’t have to.

·         Use the heading as guidance!!

·         All about how much you respond to research!

I’m just struggling to think of research to get into. I thought it was research into the workshop, but I thinking it’s needed to reflect my practice, or what I have learned. I really need to get a mind map going or a brain storm and get this key post blogged!!

UNIT X - EDUCATOR: DAY BEFORE WORKSHOP

Day before the workshop, just a quick blog post of double checking what we have.

Images on the blog are the visual aids I keep referring back to, I refer back to these just so I know and just feel better that I have some guidance in this workshop, the visual aids are from pintrest mainly, searching for different types of mark making. T

he visual aids are my research and ideas of how this is going to be and the workshop tomorrow is my final outcome.

I’m feeling confident and happy with the Urban group as a team we have done everything together and planned it all together, I feel we all are happy and know exactly what we are doing tomorrow. We keep double checking each other making sure we are bringing in what needs to be in etc. everything is set and ready for tomorrow.                                                    

VISUAL AIDS.

VISUAL AIDS.