Artists Care, phase 1

Artists Care explores the ways that charitable organisations fund, structure and manage care and supervision for artists working in challenging and complex settings. Phase 1 involved a Rapid Evidence Assessment of professions outside of music in order to understand the ways care and supervision are structured within health and social care professions. Funded by Arts Council England and The Lightbulb Trust, phase 2 is currently underway. This involves detailed ethnographies of three charitable organisations that provide music programmes and projects within criminal justice, detention and challenging community settings. The ethnographies include an evaluation of the organisation structures and strategies for supporting artists and how they support artists in sustaining careers in challenging contexts. The third phase will involve the application of the findings of the Rapid Evidence Assessment to the Ethnographies in order to design a large Scale Action Research project that will involve the design of three Artists Care programmes to suit each charitable organisation.