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The CARE Aesthetics Research Exploration Project
Care Aesthetics and Person-Centred Practices on NHS In-Patient Dementia Assessment Psychiatric Wards: A Single Case Study
John Keady & James Thompson
In the UK, National Health Service in-patient dementia assessment psychiatric wards (dementia assessment wards) admit some of the most vulnerable and complex people with dementia in society. Such admissions are invariably made compulsorily under section of the Mental Health Act (1983) due to issue around capacity to consent and underlying risk factors, including risk to the family care. Whilst the level of need is significant, these assessment wards are under-researched and under-reported in the literature and are not mentioned in influential policy documentation such as the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2020. Using mixed qualitative methods, including sensory ethnography, this presentation will focus on a detailed case study of one patient resident on a dementia assessment ward situated in the Northwest of England. However, we will focus specifically on the longitudinal, ethnographic observation of the patient and we will interpret and contextualise the visible and invisible caring actions, both by ward staff and visiting family, through the lens of care aesthetics. As we will discuss, this enables us to give voice to person-centred practices and the value of care aesthetics in articulating the embodied, sensory, and relational components of care and how a sensory register can help showcase these elements. The case study is indicative of the larger programme of work conducted on the dementia assessment ward (which involved the presenters) and published in Jones et al. (2023 and 2024).
ReferencesJones, L., Cullum, N., Watson, R. & Keady, J. (2023). Introducing the ‘3Fs Model of Complexity’ for people with dementia accessing an NHS mental health in-patient dementia assessment ward: An interpretive description study. Dementia, 22(1), 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1177/14713012221136313
Jones, L., Cullum, N., Watson, Thompson, J. & Keady, J. (2024). ‘Only my family can help’: The lived experience and care aesthetics of being resident on an NHS psychiatric/mental health inpatient dementia assessment ward – a single case study. Ageing & Society, 1–22. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X24000096
Dr. John Keady is currently Professor of Mental Health Nursing and Older People at the University of Manchester and holds a joint position with the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. His most recent edited book is titled Reconsidering Neighbourhoods and Living with Dementia: Spaces, Places and People and is published by the Open University Press/McGraw-Hill. Between 2002-2018 John was the founding and co-editor of the Sage journal Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice and is a named co-investigator on the AHRC funded (2022-2025) Care Aesthetics project where Professor James Thompson is the principal investigator and Dr Jackie Kindell is a co-investigator. John is also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Applied Dementia Studies at Bradford University and was a Senior Fellow at the School for Social Care Research between 2014 and 2024.
James Thompson is Professor of Applied Theatre at the University of Manchester. He was the co-founder of the TiPP Centre and founder of In Place of War and now runs a research project on Care Aesthetics and co-directs the Care Lab, at the Whitworth Art Gallery. He has run theatre projects internationally and has written widely on applied theatre and socially engaged arts. His new book Care Aesthetics: For Careful Art and Artful Care was published in 2022.
Tasteful Care: The Role of Food-Sharing in Manchester Community Care
Elise Imray Papineau
This paper will present the preliminary findings from the final case study of the CARE (Care Aesthetics Research Exploration) project, which explores the interplay of food-sharing and care aesthetics among community initiatives in Manchester, UK. Drawing on both Tronto’s feminist lens of care ethics and James Thompson’s concept of care aesthetics, food-sharing practices will be explored through their sensory and embodied character as well as through their political potential in their respective local context. The paper will present excerpts from interviews with Manchester community members who engage in communal gardening, creative group cooking, food distribution, queer food empowerment projects, sustainable food collectives, and other grassroots mutual aid initiatives. The framework of care ethics and aesthetics prompts reflections about the way in which food is used as a “bridging” tool, not only in a material and tangible sense, but also in a symbolic and inherently political sense. The exploration of food-sharing and its role for community care will also be juxtaposed alongside the stark reality of an increasing cost of living crisis and the “carelessness” of food waste, resource precarity, and structural inequity in the Manchester context. We are interested not only in the theoretical implications of this case study, but also in the social, cultural, and political dimensions of community care in a city with a rich history of working class and union struggles, as well as a dynamic and developing multicultural diversity.
While the findings of this case study will only be exploratory at the time of presenting, this paper will also draw on the analysis of the earlier case studies in the CARE project to highlight red threads between care aesthetics, artful practice, social care, and food-sharing. Furthermore, this paper will provide insights on the application of the care aesthetics model in fields such as Cultural Studies, Social Movement Studies, and Anarchist Studies.
Dr. Elise Imray Papineau is trained as a socio-cultural anthropologist and ethnographer. At present, she is working as a postdoctoral research associate on the CARE (Care Aesthetics Research Exploration) project at the University of Manchester. She is leading a case study with local Manchester community members about food-sharing practices and care aesthetics. Elise’s academic work is deeply rooted in activism. She completed her PhD at Griffith University in Australia in 2023. Her PhD research focused on women in grassroots activist communities in Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, exploring feminist care ethics, creative strategies of resilience, and the role of DIY. Her previous research explored the interplay of punk, politics, and piety on the Indonesian island of Java. Beyond grassroots activist communities and punk scenes, Elise’s research interests include radical lifestyle politics, feminist and queer studies, social movement studies, theories of care ethics, critical debates around ethnographic methods, and socio-cultural studies in Southeast Asia. eliseimraypapineau.com
Playing along and World Building: An Aesthetic Approach to Therapeutic Lying on Dementia Assessment Wards
Réka Polonyi
This presentation introduces key findings from one of the case studies of the Care Aesthetics Research Exploration (CARE) Project, at the University of Manchester. Secure dementia assessment wards are sites dedicated to the care of patients with acute dementia, who have been sectioned (detained) under the Mental Health Act (2005). This study followed the challenging work of healthcare support workers and their interactions with patients in three wards across four months, through ethnographic observations and Collaborative Learning groups. The research posits that the term “therapeutic lying,” often used in the context of dementia care for interactions where one is moved to deceive a patient in order to reassure them, falls short of acknowledging the embodied creativity and spontaneous imagination staff must draw on to gently create, maintain and build relations with patients in the moment. The presentation leans on performance theory to approach the artful craft of play and improvised encounters in dementia care that seek to maintain imaginary experiences driven by patients in a dignified manner. Rather than sidestepping the ethical questions regarding the nature of lying, the research considers the implications of such communicative performance when examining who initiates imaginary worlds, what roles staff chose to play, and the perceptive skill of carers in knowing when to enter, and when to leave, one world for another.
Réka Polonyi is Research Associate on the Care Aesthetics Research Exploration (CARE) Project at the University of Manchester. She is a theatre-maker and has worked specifically to promote the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers through theatre in sites of armed conflict and political violence. Réka’s research has been primarily on protest movements and political assembly, and she is the recipient of the IFTR New Scholars Prize (2021) and Arts & Society Emerging Scholar Award (2020). Réka is also a trained clown and likes to let her out whenever she can. rekapolonyi.net.
Location
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
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