“Liminality and transformation in social and emotional wellbeing: arts-based intervention for primary school children” is an article by CMH Associate Director Sarah Atkinson and CMH Artist Associate Mary Robson, currently under review. The abstract is below; comments and questions are welcome!
Abstract: Arts-based projects to enhance the social and emotional wellbeing of school age children often function through the mobilisation of spaces, practices and experiences outside or beyond those of everyday activities of the classroom and school. Existing models of how arts in health can be transformative tend to focus on the outcome trajectories of personal development but neglect the spaces and practices of implementation. The paper aims to contribute to enhancing the practices of targeted arts’ interventions for emotional and social wellbeing amongst primary school age children by exploring the challenges and strategies in managing such liminal time-spaces. The paper draws on the experience of a writing project initiated by the arts and regeneration organisation Loca in a primary school in West Yorkshire. The challenges and strategies are discussed in terms of creating liminality, managing liminality, enabling transformation and ensuring transference and re-integration. Implications for elaborating and complicating existing models of arts in health as transformative are discussed.