Museums on prescription

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · 2014 · London and Kent, UK

What it is

Museums on prescription is a community and arts-in-health programme, not psychotherapy. It is a social prescribing route: health, social care or third-sector workers refer people (in the UCL model, lonely or socially isolated older adults) to a series of facilitated group sessions in a museum or…

Format

• The programme is a structured group course in its UCL form and a single prescribed visit in its Montreal form. These are two different formats, so pick the one that matches what is available locally.
• A. UCL group programme (version followed)

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Starting 1 November 2018, MFdC member physicians who registered with the association could prescribe a free visit to the MMFA collections and exhibitions. The pilot was listed as running 2018–2019.
• Programme planning, safeguarding of participants and objects, staff support and training, and evaluation are covered in the UCL guide Heritage in Health (2012). That guide's details are.
• Professional frame. Museum-on-prescription facilitation is not a regulated profession. Facilitators in the UCL programme were museum staff and volunteers. The programme is not art therapy. In the UK, art therapy is a separate, HCPC-registered profession (the professional body is BAAT). Where a museum employs an art therapist, as the MMFA does with a full-time art therapist, that therapist's work is a separate…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• low mood or renewed isolation after the programme ends.
• falls risk in cramped stores; people who are claustrophobic.
• personal objects tied to grief. Let people choose what they share.
• avoidance that builds up the night before; transport that is unreliable.
• medical instability, delirium, and patients who feel obliged to say yes.

Problems the guide addresses

• Evidence status, as the sources report it

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.