Negotiating evolution and change for the art therapy profession through co-production and partnership working

The International Journal of Art Therapy (IJAT) Board of Editors has grown this year to reflect a broader cultural, international and professional mix. Involvement and dedication by the IJAT Board comes from a shared regard to support the growth and innovation of art therapy practice, research and theory.

Innovation can require changes in something established to bring new ideas to practice. Change can occur in response to reflexivity and at times to situations beyond our control, such as the Coronavirus pandemic. How we respond to, initiate and identify change are themes that run throughout the articles in this issue of IJAT.

In the art therapy profession, art therapists are required to be practising artists and often have experience in delivering both arts and health projects and art therapy. Recently, the use of the arts within the health industry has grown. In June of this year, the virtual Culture Health and Wellbeing International Conference welcomed 520 delegates, including 250 speakers from 30 countries, with art therapy contributing under the arts and health umbrella. This fast-expanding sphere encompasses the use of art in varying practices creating the opportunity for rich partnerships, but also demands clarification of the different professional frameworks involved.

Clarification through high-quality research

Spearheaded by IJAT, art therapists and art therapy researchers have a collective function to facilitate high-quality research as a communication tool, and to demonstrate the evidence for effective art therapy practices. IJAT is a vehicle for advancing the profession's growth, and its new templates for writing research and practice papers offer clear and helpful guidance for inexperienced authors to support them on this journey.

Having a voice

As the art therapy profession develops this evidence-base through research, art therapists can continue to communicate and share descriptions of practice that reach beyond the profession. Here, social media has provided communication opportunities that importantly encourage us to consider our audiences’ communication styles and preferences. Thinking beyond the voice of the art therapist, innovation through co-production is lending weight to the vital role service users can play as experts by experience, both in designing services and research and in describing and communicating their experiences of art therapy (DeLucia & Kennedy, 2021; Segal-Engelchin et al., 2020; Springham & Xenophontes, 2021; Winter & Coles, 2021). Visual skills can also help art therapy articulate its practices and research. These strategies can include the recent use of art within video abstracts that engage interest, while inviting clarity and understanding (Chilvers et al., 2021; Eastwood, 2020; Holttum et al., 2021; Power et al., 2021).

Collaboration

As professionals, art therapists hold clinical skills that are set down in codes of ethics and registrant standards. In the UK, these include non-discriminatory practice and working appropriately in partnership with others (HCPC, 2013, standards 6 and 9). Working in co-production and partnerships involves proactive explorations of collaborative research. Ultimately, our openness to explore reciprocal growth will benefit the individuals and communities our respective fields aim to support. We have seen this type of successful partnership-working evidenced through the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) advisory role to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing, culminating in the 2017 Inquiry Report, Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing.

An openness to understanding how you are seen by the other

It is vital to continue sharing professional messages and equally important to investigate how the wider public understands our profession. The articles in this issue highlight the importance of reflexivity for art therapists, alongside seeing ourselves from the perspective of others, thereby facilitating a rich and broad illustration of art therapy's role and function.

In this issue

At the time of writing, anxieties regarding new variants of Coronavirus and the implications of easing restrictions are prevalent. The articles in this issue demonstrate a pivotal opportunity for growth that the pandemic and a heightening of the mental health agenda have provided, for art therapy to negotiate changes that lead to innovation and discovery. Eastwood’s (2020) opinion piece, White privilege and art therapy in the UK: Are we doing the work? powerfully calls on art therapists to actively seek out blind spots and interrogate their belief systems regarding white privilege and white fragility within the art therapy profession, through her examination of ‘unique social locations and complex relationship’ with ‘intersecting identities’ (2021, p. 6). ‘Reflecting or frozen?’ The impact of Covid-19 on art therapists working with people with a learning disability (Power et al., 2021) uses thematic analysis to address the underexplored topic of online art therapy for people with learning disabilities, noting the importance of the contribution of their voice and of virtual working to facilitate reflective skills for professional self-understanding, communication and peer support. The practice paper Community adult mental health: Mitigating the impact of Covid-19 through online art therapy (Biro-Hannah, 2021) illustrates the role of social connectedness, cooperation and communication in art therapy to support mental health populations transcend vulnerabilities made apparent through the pandemic. Despite the challenges of shifting to online practice in response to Coronavirus, The digital art therapy frame: Creating a ‘magic circle’ in teletherapy, Snyder (2021) illustrates how adaptations, including establishing new online frameworks and rituals when working with children, have added to art therapists’ tool kit of resources. Developing art therapy practice within perinatal parent-infant mental health (Bruce & Hackett, 2020) describes productive partnership working within perinatal services and presents the evolution and growth of art therapy services within this field.

Co-production and working in partnerships are fundamental to negotiating evolution and change for the art therapy profession. We would do well to remember that ‘a creative meeting of differentiated perspectives to generate new understanding’ (Springham & Xenophontes, 2021, p. 3), that demonstrates an appreciation for the equality of contribution, lies at the core of successul collaborations and professional growth.