How to set up an Arts on Prescription programme?

21 September 2023

This question was discussed in several train-the-trainer sessions between June and September 2023 to support project partners and their link workers on setting up own Arts on Prescription programmes.

Technical details

A group of partners (Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Odense, Westpomerania, Cesis Municipality and Turku) has developed a four-module train-the-trainer (TtT) programme. The aim of the TtT programme is to provide support to the countries who are piloting and setting up an Arts on Presription (AoP) programme in their own region.

The structure of the TtT programme consists of the following four modules:

1. Introduction – What is AoP?
2. How to build an AoP programme?
3. How to evaluate AoP?
4. Being a facilitator

Cultural Region Funen from Odense Municipality produced the first two modules, which are primarily aim to guide the coordinators/managers who will be piloting their own local and regional AoP programmes in the project.

The modules cover an introduction to AoP concept and information regarding the organisational processes required to set up an AoP programme. What is the concept behind Arts on Prescription? What is the general organisational framework? Who are the actors involved? These and more questions were successfully discussed with the partners at the online TtT session on 13 th June 2023.

The third module covers evaluation of AoP programmes and is led by Turku University of Applied Science in partnership with the University of Southern Denmark. The partners from the universities addressed via several meetings, both online and at the transnational workshop in Szczecin on September 6th 2023, the responsibilities and tasks of the local evaluation managers as well as providing and briefing piloting partners in evaluation methods to be used, to evaluate the AoP-programme in their own country.

The train-the -trainer session for module four was held at the second transnational meeting in Sczcecin (5th-6th September 2023) and was led by the Bremen partners (Ministry for health, women and consumer protection and Bremer Volkshochschule – adult education centre). The training primarily aimed to provide knowledge for link workers on the special needs of persons with mental health issues. The workshop provided link workers with a framework and tools to guide and prepare arts and culture facilitators in the piloting countries who will work with the AoP programme’s target audience – people with mental health issues. The focus of this workshop was on reflection and sharing personal experiences rather than knowledge transfer.

Overall, the piloting partners feel well prepared for their first piloting phase. After completion of all TtT programme modules, it is planned to review and further elaborate the content of the modules after the first piloting phase and before the second piloting phase in spring 2024.