Cross-sector, state-level partnerships are key to sustaining and ensuring access to creative aging programming, especially for older adults in rural communities. Research shows that these arts education programs contribute significantly to healthy aging and increased social connection. The Advancing Creative Aging in Westerns States Initiative, launched in 2023, is designed to deepen and sustain collaboration among state agency partners to advance creative aging in the Western region. Currently the Initiative includes partnership teams in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah. These teams include leaders from state arts agencies, state libraries, and state veterans services, and will expand to include aging services and health and human services.
Lifetime Arts will provide consulting services and information resources for multiple stakeholders across these state agencies. These resources are designed to support new and existing partnerships across state agencies and their constituent organizations. Lifetime Arts also is supporting the development and implementation of up to five creative aging programs in sector-specific host organizations in each state. These programs will serve a total of 500 older adults and help to demonstrate the benefits and efficacy of creative aging.
From the evaluation report:
Creative Aging in Wyoming Public Libraries is a statewide initiative intended to strengthen Wyoming public libraries as community anchors for positive and creative aging, and to expand arts learning opportunities for older Wyoming residents through their local libraries. It is a collaboration between two state agencies, the Wyoming State Library and the Wyoming Arts Council, and Lifetime Arts, a national nonprofit organization that is a resource center for a particular model of instructional arts programming for older adults. Funding was provided by the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust and the Wyoming Community Foundation.
The initiative started with a planning and training phase that ran from December 2020 into May 2021, followed by an implementation phase from late May 2021 through December 2022 in which participating libraries began conducting creative aging programs. The training phase included an orientation webinar in February 2021 for all interested Wyoming library staff and teaching artists. This was followed by In-depth online training workshops (six hours in length) in March 2021 for librarians and library administrators in Wyoming’s 23 county library systems and for prospective teaching artists.
This project included an evaluation component that assessed impact and sought lessons on multiple levels: on participating older adults, librarians, and library systems. It was designed also to build librarians’ skills at documenting these programs, evaluating their impact and generating lessons for greater effectiveness. The evaluation was coordinated by the Touchstone Center for Collaborative Inquiry, a Minneapolis-based evaluation firm that has partnered with Lifetime Arts on several creative aging initiatives. Evaluation data was gathered by library program coordinators, using three instruments designed by Touchstone; and by Touchstone president David Scheie through interviews, focus groups and observations.
In this issue of The Creative Aging Resource Newsletter by Lifetime Arts, Diantha Dow Schull (Curator for Lifetime Arts), discusses recent arts participation studies and how their diverse approaches positively impact older adults and the creative aging field.
Diantha synthesized this issue into two distinct questions:
- What do we know about the impact of participation in creative aging programs for older adults?
- Further, what do we know about current approaches to measuring that impact?
In this issue of The Creative Aging Resource from Lifetime Arts, Diantha Dow Schull (Curator for Lifetime Arts), interviews two innovative programmers; Amy DelPo, Older Adult Specialist at the Denver Public Library and Harrison Orr, Director of Museum Education at Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Both programs were for members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. They were also intergenerational and offered online, providing instructive models for other cultural institutions.
Denver Public Library offers multiple services and programs for older adults, ranging from financial planning assistance and mindfulness programs to special programs for LGBTQ+ Older Adults. The “Embrace Aging!” blog is curated by Amy DelPo, Manager of Older Adult Services.
“Embrace Aging!” was the title of the April 2022 blog, in which DelPo discusses her approach to aging and older adult programming. She references psychiatrist Carl Jung and psychologist Gene Cohen, whose work influenced general understanding of aging, in particular older adults’ creative potential and capacity to experience aging as a positive experience.
“Jung and Cohen did not ignore the difficult realities of aging, but they implored us to put those realities into context and see them as only part of a complicated and often beautiful experience”.
In January 2022, teaching artist, Ellen Peterson, taught, “Adobe Illustrator, Barnwood, and Plasma Class,” through the Campbell County Public Library System in Wyoming. During this program, participants created an image on barnwood using Adobe Illustrator, laser and plasma cutters, and metal. Participants shared their final piece in a culminating gallery with family and friends. This video showcases the participant’s work each week.
This program is part Creative Aging in Wyoming Public Libraries, a partnership between the Wyoming State Library and Wyoming Arts Council and made possible through the generous support from the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust and the Wyoming Community Foundation.
This article discusses the issues and outcomes surrounding a university-library-museum partnership that connected undergraduate students with community living older adults for a photography-based intergenerational program. The 4-year face-to-face program was interrupted after 2 years by the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating a shift to an online format. Although pre- and post- results from participants reveal similar assessments during and before COVID-19, findings do reveal potential challenges in implementation. This is an excellent example of a project assessment that goes beyond anecdotes to include data. It is also a useful discussion of the ways in which on-line programming impacts planning and implementation.
