Building Relationships

Building Relationships with staff and people using the service

To make the workshop worthwhile for the participants it was important for the artists to build a trust relationship to each participant and to give them as much time as they needed to get into the painting process. This worked unexpectedly well with most people. We were both able to build very good relationships with our key participants after we decided very early on that we would keep working with the same person. This enabled us to build good trust relationships with the participants and to get to know each others habits and ways of communicating.

Part of building a good relationship was our goal to interfere as little as possible and to empower the participants to make their own decisions and choices. We did guide participants and encouraged them but this was done sensitively, using clear and simple language and trying to avoid any pressure. This was sometimes difficult for us, especially when our own ambitions of producing ‘high quality outcomes’ came in the way. Sue and I were conscious about this and would remind each other to step back and to give the participant space and time to explore their own creative engagement. We both learned a lot during this process and are now much more able to let go and to trust the interest and motivation of the participant. To have a project running over this period of time was an advantage in many ways; time is an important component in building trust – we were able to develop this during one session and during the whole of the project!

The presentations we gave prior to the start of the workshops to staff and service users also had a positive impact on building good relationships.  Please see section ‘Preparation’.

Unfortunately we missed the opportunity to speak to key workers prior to the project about communication used with participants. This would have added another advantage. We probably would have reduced some of our first anxiety and would have been able to avoid some misunderstandings of behaviour of participants.

Equally, to be able to work efficiently together on the project, the artists also had to build a good relationship. We were fortune to have been able to build a valuable working relationship based on trust and respect. New skills were mutually developed throughout the experiences of the project. Further plans are made to work together in the future both on our artistic practice and participatory projects.