The routine use of evaluation by art therapists and allied health professionals in everyday clinical practice

ABSTRACT

This article outlines a pilot project to support the use of the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE) System by arts therapists¹ and other Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and the establishment of a Practice Research Network (PRN) to evaluate the use of the system in routine clinical practice. It describes the aims of the project, the establishment of the PRN, the data collected during the project and its impact on the practitioners involved. It draws initial conclusions from the project and discusses the strengths and limitations of this approach to measuring the outcomes of psychological therapy.

KEYWORDS:

• CORE System
• arts therapies
• Allied Health Professionals
• psychological therapies
• pilot project
• Practice Research Network
• service user involvement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Three groups of participants are identified throughout the article: art therapists, arts therapists and Allied Health Professionals (AHPs). Arts therapists refers to three arts therapies professions regulated by the Health Professions Council (HCPC); art therapists drama therapists and music therapists, as well as to dance movement therapists who while not HCPC regulated were permitted to join by the project funders. AHPs refers to members of other eligible HCPC regulated professions other than arts therapists who took part in the project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

T. Chenery

Notes on Contributors

Tony Chenery is an Art Psychotherapist. Over the last 30 years Tony has worked in England and Scotland as an Art Psychotherapist and for the last 15 years as head of an Arts Therapies Service in Central Scotland. He has lectured and delivered workshops in conjunction with mental health services in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Finland. He has been an active member of BAAT for over 20 years and is a keen advocate for the improvement and provision of mental health services both in the UK and abroad. Email: [email protected]

J. Fulton

John Fulton is Principal Art Psychotherapist in Adult Psychological Services at NHS Ayrshire and Arran. He has experience of working in different settings during a career that has extended over 22 years. In 1997 he served on the first federal Arts Therapists Board at the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine and was later appointed to the Health and Care Professions Council in the role of Partner Visitor. He has additional training and expertise that supports extended practice roles within mental health services.

J. Mellor-Clark

John Mellor-Clark is Managing Director of CORE Information Management Systems & Research Consultant at the Centre for Psychological Therapies in Primary Care (CPTPC), University of Chester. John has been engaged in the evaluation of UK psychological therapies and counselling for the past 25 years. Originally trained as an organisational psychologist, John's special interest in quality assurance in healthcare has led him to regularly publish and present on a range of topics such as best practice development, service quality benchmarking and the introduction of practitioner performance appraisal. Through the mid-1990s John led the development of the CORE System as the first UK standardised quality evaluation system for psychological therapy. Today, the unique empirical yield from CORE helps create one of the single largest databases of practice-based evidence in the field. As well as acting as Research Director for the Centre, John is co-founder and Managing Director at www.coreims.co.uk.

S. Mellor-Clark

Simone Mellor-Clark is Project Manager CORE Information Management Systems and Visiting Research Fellow, Birmingham City University. Simone has worked clinically in a diverse range of mental health settings including an NHS Adult Community Health Team and a Personality Disorders Counselling Service. In response to working with clients diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and who also satisfied the criteria for cluster A and C personality disorder, Simone developed an interest in the value of questionnaire feedback as a means of providing feedback on client progress to the clinician. Simone's interests focus on the clinical application of questionnaire feedback, which focuses on change at the individual item level, rather than the summary score level. She has independently developed tools to maximise the clinical use of outcome measurement to support conversational techniques increasing client engagement in both the process and results of outcome data. Simone combines working as a project manager supporting a diverse array of services implementing routine outcome measurement with working as an adult psychotherapist in private practice.

S. N. Willoughby-Booth

Simon Willoughby-Booth is a retired Art Psychotherapist. He joined the NHS in 1978 as a nursing assistant and began involvement in art therapy in 1980. He practised as an Art Therapist, researcher and Arts Therapies Manager until retirement in 2010. He represented the profession in many national groups and forums for allied health professionals. He has given lectures, workshops and conference papers in the UK, Ireland, Italy, the USA and Sweden and published articles and book chapters on art therapy and research. He has been a member of the Arts Therapies Board of CPSM and a Health Professions Council Partner from 2002–2014. Since retirement he has remained active in the profession and in the British Association of Art Therapists.