What arts therapists and trainees can offer your health care service
Arts therapists include art, music and drama therapists. Qualified arts therapists and trainee arts therapists can bring a wealth of benefits to services and the lives of service users.
Why hire an arts therapist?
Arts therapists have to meet national standards
Arts therapists are regulated and are fully accountable to the Health and Care Professions Council, whose primary remit is public protection.
An arts therapist’s right to practice is linked to continuing registration and compliance with HCPC standards for professional skills and behaviour as well as additional obligations, such as undertaking continuing professional development (CPD). This ensures arts therapists continue to learn and develop throughout their careers, keeping skills and knowledge up-to-date, and ensuring they are able to work safely, legally and effectively.
Arts therapists provide cost-effective psychotherapeutic interventions
Bruce Howard Bayley, external liaison officer for the British Association of Drama Therapists (BADth), said: “Working with clients creatively and psychologically attempts to secure an emotional wellbeing that is core to the potential impact of other health and social care interventions. This is why arts therapists are recognised for providing more cost-effective psychotherapeutic interventions.”
You can read more about the evidence for art therapy with different groups of people in our growing library of evidence pages.
Arts therapists can transform the lives and wellbeing of service users
The benefits to service users can extend well beyond therapy sessions. Arts therapists are skilled at engaging hard-to-reach service users of all ages, regardless of their conditions. Outcomes can include improved social and communication skills, as well as increased confidence and self-esteem.
Find out what clients have said about their experiences of art therapy.
What arts therapy trainees can offer your service
As part of their training, arts therapists on master’s courses must complete placements. Offering a trainee placement can also hugely benefit services and service users.
Some of the benefits of offering a placement to a trainee arts therapist include:
- more people can access arts therapy
- being able to provide low intensity interventions and experiential groups
- bringing fresh energy and new ideas from their training