Business Development Manager, Nemo Arts
March 2020 seems a long time ago but will be etched on the memories of all of us who have experienced this time of Covid-19, a global pandemic that has taken the lives of so many people. March was when we all took cover, we did what we were told and we locked our doors, had food delivered and began to find a new way to live and work. That is, if we didn’t belong to the amazing brave group of frontline workers who still had to go to work as normal.
The rest of us were told the best thing we could do was to keep ourselves as safe as possible so that the health services were not totally swamped. Thus began the great ‘work from home’ the great ‘on line’, the great Zoom and Teams and that endlessly repeated phrase ‘Margaret, Tom, Hugh you are on mute’.
Here at Nemo Arts we had 21 years’ experience supporting mental health recovery in all its forms through the arts. One of our key expressions is ‘communication and collaboration’ yet suddenly we could not bring people together in person and we could not go out to meet all the agencies with whom we collaborate. As a start we put all our community workshops online and where necessary provided participants with art materials and, vitally, pre-paid 4G tablets so they could join in if they didn’t have other internet access. That was done in one week but then we had to begin to find the right ways to keep in touch with outside partners.
Community Justice Glasgow were, as ever, at the forefront in bringing agencies together to help resolve some of the Justice challenges the city faces. I sometimes wonder if the success of collaboration in Glasgow is just a result of Glaswegians being friendly chatty folk, but I am sure there is much more to it than that!
It was through these group discussions on-line that we realised that our work supporting people doing Community Payback Orders didn’t have to stop completely. The projects had been recognised as ‘purposeful activity’ and although creative, they were also learning opportunities requiring self-discipline and focus.
Community Justice Glasgow, Glasgow City Council – Criminal Justice Social Work, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership and Nemo Arts swung into action and before you could say Van Gogh, art packs and 4G pre-paid tablets had been supplied to participants and we were off.
Our group of guys and gals weren’t just going to paint pictures, they were going to learn how pictures are made, how images are built up, how to work together with folk they didn’t even know and find ways to express themselves without having to use all the right words. Mark Byrne the professional artist who led the workshops is a local person with huge experience in helping others begin a learning journey in art. It is fair to say it is scary trying something new and scary for others to see it – but our group soon excelled. The images you see here are absolute proof of that, these are just a few, to view them all in their splendour please click the arrows.
In this mad ‘consumer society’ each of the participants had made something, something beautiful and meaningful. By showing it to others they give something back to us all. Glasgow is famed for producing many of the greatest ships on earth and the men who built them were proud to have made something. These images are not great ships – but they are a new beginning and a way of making that ‘the artist’ should be proud of. Already our group has a new way to think of themselves, as makers. Collaboration amongst services made this possible (or Glasgow folk talking to each other) and by creating and showing these images, our group moves from being passive recipients to active members of that wider team of support by demonstrating its value.
Roll on the next cohort…
Tom Jackson, Head of Community Justice in Glasgow, commented:
“When the Pandemic hit, all Community Payback Unpaid Work hours were interrupted. With a backlog building up it was critical that Community Justice Partners worked quickly, flexibly and creatively to ensure that as much service provision got up and running as quickly as possible. Collaborating with theGlasgow Health & Social Care Partnership to re-direct resources to where they could have most impact, Nemo Arts were commissioned, using Section 27 Funding (Ringfenced funding provided by Scottish Government to Local authorities to deliver justice services), to deliver a test of change programme for the Other Activity element of Community Payback Orders.”
You can find out more about this in our publication ‘A Summary of Community Options’ – CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW:
Figure 1 – A Summary of Community Options
“Nemo Arts primary aim as an organisation is to improve mental health and wellbeing – in a Community Justice context, improving Health & Wellbeing is one of the ‘Protective Factor’ priorities set out in our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan 2018-2023. Protective Factors are the things that we can do to protect against the risk of further offending.
The programme was very well received and as well as improving mental health and wellbeing also helped those who undertook the programme to develop both their personal wellbeing (emotions, satisfaction, vitality, resilience and self-esteem) and social wellbeing by developing trust in groups through the development of creative arts.
I very much see these tests of change that came about as a result of the pandemic, as great learning opportunities, using the learning to do things differently going forward, using our resources where they will have the greatest impact in reducing re-offending.”
