Pictured above: Pete addressing the audience audience as a Keynote speaker at the North West Psychological Professions 10 Year Celebration Event on 24th April this year on his work using film and theatre within the training of health professionals. Picture Copyright is © 2023 North West Psychological Professions Network

A north west playwright has received a boost from ARC NWC by securing funding to help complete his PhD. 

Pete Carruthers is a registered PhD by Portfolio student at ARC NWC member University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), and ARC NWC has contributed £10,000 towards his Doctorate of Philosophy:  ‘Empathy Machines: Using theatre and film in the training of compassionate and reflective health professionals’, with equivalent matched funding from UcLAN.

The PhD is evaluating the impact of two historic projects and one live element:

·         Historic project one covers the use of Pete’s three short films about military veterans’ mental health and transition to civilian life. These films have been used nationally and internationally to train health professionals working with military veterans. (To watch the trailers for the three films, click here)

·         Historic project two covers the research and development phases of The Possibility of Colour and impact on student health professionals’ learning in 2015/16 and 2021.

·         Live project three looks at the 2022 Northern tour of The Possibility of Colour, specifically the impact on the learning outcomes of student health professionals. 

The Possibility of Colour is a stage play written by Pete, with input at every stage from mental health professionals, academics, student practitioners, and people with lived experience of the themes explored in the piece. Its premise is to explore issues around mental health, voice hearing, synaesthesia, neurodiversity, forced treatment and the use of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare.

Previous funding from Arts Council England and UCLan has sustained the research and development phase of the play, involving substantial engagement with users and providers of mental health care, resulting in an initial short tour of the play in theatres across the region, which earned enthusiastic and positive reviews.

Pete’s PhD will capture and evaluate this reaction to the play, its value to nursing education and impact on the wider public audience e.g. in relation to views on mental health stigma etc.
 
Pete said: “Thanks to funding from Health Education England (now merged into NHS england), 1,350 student nurses were given the opportunity to attend a performance and post-show discussion, with this counting as official practice learning experience towards their training.  The initial response from students, lecturers, experts by experience and the wider general public has been overwhelmingly positive and this data will form part of the research analysis contributing towards my findings and subsequent conclusion of the PhD.”

The additional ARC NWC funding will also help sustain further refinements of the play, prior to a planned national tour, supported by NHS England.

Mick McKeown, Pete’s Supervisor and Professor of Democratic Mental Health at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, said: “Pete is exploring a very interesting and potentially valuable intersection of creative arts and mental health training for health professionals. All three elements of his PhD will provide evidence as to the benefit of using theatre and film in this area and has the potential to shape how we teach our future front-line staff.”

It is envisaged that educational organisations across the ARC NWC collaboration will benefit from the findings, identifying the value of film and theatre as a potential teaching tool for their own training delivery methods.

Further information about the play is available here.