Project title
Description of initiative
The Reader Organisation has through their pioneering Reading for Health scheme developed an innovative intervention, ‘Shared Reading’, in order to promote wellbeing in a range of contexts, which include community, hospital and acute settings. The shared reading model brings people together in weekly groups to listen to poems and stories read aloud. Thoughts and experiences are shared; personal and social connections are made.
This approach focuses on the person rather than any health issue. By focusing on people not problems it identifies resource. The underlying tenet or central power of the shared reading model means that through works of fiction or poetry reading can help individuals to make changes to how they feel about themselves and how they relate to other people. In this way, literature has a powerful potential to contribute to both general wellbeing as well as healing processes.
Further information on the initiative
Themes: Culture and...
Keywords
Target group
Cultural field
Timeframe
Results, benefits, impact and lessons learnt
A report conducted by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University (May 2013) examined the social impact of ‘Get Into Reading’ groups in Wirral, showing how the lives of the group members are being improving in real, measurable terms. The report found that for every £1 spent on the delivery of shared reading groups in Wirral, an average of £6.47 is brought back in social return – meaning that members get the equivalent of this amount as an improvement to their overall health and wellbeing