Waterford Healing Arts Trust

Evaluation of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust

Call for Expressions of Interest

Context

The Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) is one of Ireland’s leading arts and health organisations. Based in Waterford Regional Hospital, WHAT aims: -

• To facilitate access to and participation in the arts
• To reduce anxiety and stress for patients, visitors, and staff through integrating art into healthcare environments
• To forge closer relationships between hospital professionals and between the hospital and the wider community through the arts.
• To create professional development opportunities for artists to produce new work and engage new audiences within healthcare and community contexts

• To take the lead in the field of Arts and Health in the Republic of Ireland through education, research and professional development

Our programme comprises contemporary art exhibitions, live music performances in wards and outpatient clinics, artist-in-residence programmes, art and music making workshops for health service users via a mobile Art Kart, Artist on Call service, Music in Mental Health Settings and other programmes. We have built up a large collection of contemporary art which is on view throughout Waterford Regional Hospital and we commission artworks for specific sites within the hospital. We also connect with the wider community through our weekly Open Studio and outreach programmes. See for more information.

We take a national lead in the development of arts and health practice in Ireland through our library, professional development programme and advice clinics. In 2011, in partnership with Create, the national agency for the development of collaborative arts in social contexts, we developed the first national arts and health website artsandhealth.ie which provides information, news, resources and opinion for and by artists, arts organisations, health service users, carers, healthcare professionals and others interested in the dynamic area of arts and health in Ireland. We also created a dedicated Centre for Arts and Health in the grounds of Waterford Regional Hospital, the first of its kind in Ireland, which opened in 2009.

In 2008 WHAT developed a three year strategy with the following objectives:

To consolidate and build on existing programme and services.
To integrate the work of WHAT into HSE operations and the Health Service
To create professional development opportunities for artists to produce new work and engage new audiences within healthcare contexts
To consolidate WHAT’s role as a National Resource Organisation in the field of Arts and Health
To develop a Centre for Arts and Health with a recognisable identity and adequate resources.
To develop WHAT’S programme and services in line with the plans for the Centre for Arts and Health
To ensure best practice in strategic policy and planning.

The last independent evaluation of WHAT was carried out by Ruairi O’Cuiv in 1990. WHAT is now at a stage whereby it needs to refocus its work in line with its capacity for its next strategy spanning 2013 – 2018 and position the organisation in the growing portfolio of national arts and health practice.

Consultancy Brief

WHAT wishes to commission an independent evaluation of its work since 2008 with a view to informing its next strategy 2013 - 2018.

The evaluation will:

Assess the capacity of WHAT to sustain its current output and its potential to grow going forward
Review progress made on the delivery of the Strategy 2008 - 2010
Make recommendations for the priorities and focus of the next Strategy 2013 – 2018

WHAT will provide:

Access to collected quantitative and qualitative data as available
Access to partners and stakeholders including healthcare staff, health service users (where appropriate), artists, committee members etc
Support of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust staff
A working base in the WHAT Centre for Arts and Health if required

Completion date: December 2012

Fee: €3000 incl VAT, travel costs etc

Expressions of Interest

Applicants are required to include the following when submitting a tender:

An outline of how the evaluation will be carried including methodologies
Evidence of skills and knowledge relevant to the arts and health sector
Evidence of high quality report writing and ability to analyse complex information

Short-listed candidates will be interviewed.

Please submit an expression of interest by hard copy no later than 27th July 2012 at 4pm.

for the attention of Mary Grehan, Director, Waterford Healing Arts Trust, Waterford Regional Hospital, Dunmore Road, Waterford.

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