Updated: Art group in Crediton supporting women who have experienced trauma receives Innovation Fund

The Devon Mental Health Alliance Innovation Fund has been awarded to a local art group for women by our Community Mental Health Development Leads in Exeter, East & Mid Devon.

We are really pleased to be partnering with Helen Hamilton, an artist and trained counsellor offering therapeutic support groups for women in the rural community in and around Crediton. These weekly, term-based groups are focused on offering a safe and supportive space for vulnerable women in the local community to connect and work through past trauma.

Participants make their way to the art group through a wide referral base ranging from organisations like Crediton Food Bank, the Journey counselling service, Devon Recovery Learning Community, Harbour Family and Child Support, GPs through the Joy app, TALKWORKS, and local mental health professionals.

Titled Art in Reflection: My Life Journey in Metaphor, the groups use painting and creative exploration to develop coherent narratives of participants’ life stories, with a focus on gaining greater resilience. Each session has an overarching theme taken from nature to inspire the art making and self-reflection, which is paired with psychoeducation to empower the participants to develop their sense of self-worth in a nurturing and creative environment.

The Devon Mental Health Alliance’s support of these groups will enable Helen to subsidise another cohort of participants, as well as begin to establish a longer-term group for those who have been through the initial course.

Matt Merriam, our Community Mental Health Development Lead supporting Helen, commented: “We know that many of the individuals in our communities struggling to access the help they need have a history of trauma and are living with its impacts on a daily basis. Groups like Helen’s, firmly rooted in the community and run skilfully, will enable more people to recover from the impacts of that trauma and find a way to thrive despite it.”

Update December 2023:

Helen has kindly provided the following update on her service:

“Thanks to ongoing financial support from local funds like the Innovation Fund, our service continues to flourish and offer a place of safety and connection for local women living in rural Mid Devon. Our referral base is growing and we are now also receiving referrals from the local surgery, Redlands. I have also begun offering one-off workshops (with a translator) for local Ukrainian women who have asked for therapeutic support and a place for creativity and story sharing.

A big addition this term has been the arrival of two interns who have trained alongside me and experienced first-hand the power of group work. This is something I will continue due to its success, and because of the additional funds I have been able to cover their supervision costs throughout the term so they can receive adequate external support.

In the ongoing long-term group, our participants decide on the themes together, and this half-term they wanted to explore ‘Boundaries in Mothering’. Many of them are experiencing complex parenting challenges, usually parenting solo, and often describe feeling that the group is the only place where they can feel understood and safe to share their greatest fears / worries / struggles / longings. Though I do not take photos of the work, my intern did take a photo of her part of a collaborative piece that we did a couple of weeks ago on this theme (see below).

It was a powerful experience for all, as we explored different associations that the theme brought up — nostalgia for past walks with family members in the topography, familiar ways of being and doing in current relationships (represented by manmade markings in map), control vs the unknown (land/sea), chaos vs order, healthy boundaries/unhealthy boundaries, longing, struggle, uncertainty, vulnerability, etc. Within the ongoing group, we work with the themes that emerge in the check-ins to be relevant to their current struggles, and this seems to be deeply beneficial and the members reflect back on how much it is relevant to their current lives.

Just now, an email has come through from one of the members who wrote: “The group is soo special for me and I couldn’t imagine not having the support from it right now. Thank you for all your work, time and energy.””