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ABSTRACT
Background
Veterans experience a transition when they return home from military service and resume life as a civilian citizen. Transition refers to service members’ passage from military life to civilian life, which often involves emotional, physical, and social changes.
Aims
The purpose of this participatory action research study was to address the treatment needs of transitioning veterans with three overarching goals: 1) to unite and empower veterans to contribute to the design of their own art therapy programme to meet their self-identified needs, 2) to contribute to a foundation of knowledge that will help shape future art therapy practices with veterans, and 3) to promote the advancement of art therapy within other organisations.
Methods
Through collective inquiry, the research team examined how veterans experience the art therapy programme in relationship to their needs and utilised PAR methods to identify ways to strengthen art therapy effectiveness.
Results
Participating veterans identified seven basic principles of art therapy that support healthy veteran transition from military to civilian life based on their personal experiences with art therapy and transition.
Conclusions
Co-research can yield rich knowledge and meaningful change by engaging the expertise of people with lived experience. Including art making as a research activity can provide a range of opportunities for researchers to engage in the creation of new knowledge.
Implications for practice and research
The implementation of the participatory action research framework described in this paper provides a case study illustration for other practitioner researchers that demonstrates the accessibility and value of co-research.
Plain-language summary
Veterans experience a transition when they return home from military service and resume life as a civilian citizen, or a resident who is no longer part of the Armed Forces. Veterans who participated as co-researchers in this study identified the term transition and described it as the passage from military to civilian live. They described that military-to-civilian transition often involved social, emotional and physical changes. The study was conducted by a group of researchers that included ten veterans of the United States Armed Forces and 1 art therapist using Participatory Action Research methodology, which brings together researchers and people who are impacted directly by the identified problem. A main goal of the study was to provide veterans an opportunity to provide input in the design of the art therapy programme where they received services. The researchers were also interested in finding new knowledge about how art therapy helps veterans. This new knowledge was meant to be shared in order to encourage more art therapy programming for veterans. The group of researchers worked together to study how they experienced services in the programme. By examining how well these services met their needs, veteran-researchers were able to recommend ways to improve the art therapy programme.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jennifer DeLucia
Jennifer DeLucia , DAT, ATR-BC, LCAT is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Department of Creative Arts Therapy at Syracuse University. DeLucia spearheaded the development of a new graduate hybrid program in art therapy and the recently established department of creative arts therapy at Syracuse University. At the University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), she serves as curator of the National Veterans Resource Center gallery and research associate. DeLucia previously led the AmericaServes Community of Practice for the IVMF, a national collective impact initiative connecting and supporting over 500 service providers across 16 communities. Prior to her work at the University, DeLucia served as the director of wellness and supportive services at the Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester, New York. There she developed the wellness programme to include comprehensive art therapy and case management services. DeLucia currently volunteers at the Rochester Vet Center.
Brian Kennedy
SSG Brian Kennedy is a federal electronics technician at Combined Support and Maintenance Shop C. Also, he serves as an active member of the New York Army National Guard. Currently, he serves as the S6 NCOIC and Information Services NCO for HHT 2–101 CAV based out of Niagara Falls. Kennedy had a combat deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 with 2–108th Infantry Battalion as well as a completed tour of duty at the JMTG-U in Ukraine from 2017–18 in support of training Ukrainian communications soldiers and officers with HHT 2–101 CAV. During his last deployment to Ukraine, he used art as a way to create a bridge between language barriers in turn opening up a connection between American and Ukrainian communications soldiers. SSG Kennedy possesses a natural inherent desire to help others. He uses artistic self-expression as a healing methodology, not only for himself but most importantly to assist others.