Reading for Health and Wellbeing studies the nationwide impacts of a community 'Shared Reading' programme pioneered by The Reader.
The Reader isa national charity that uses the power of literature and reading aloud to transform lives.
Below you can read more about some of our projects:
An investigation into the effectiveness of shared reading as a whole population health intervention
Funder: Guy’s and St Thomas’s Charity Foundation. This study investigates whether The Reader's shared reading groups are an effective whole population health intervention. In collaboration with Goldsmith’s College, the study evaluates the effectiveness of shared reading for distinct groups in SE London (adults and older adults in the community, adults for whom English is a second language, adults who access mental health services or suffer dementia, children in schools).
Assessing the intrinsic value, and health and wellbeing benefits, for individual and community, of The Reader Organisation's Volunteer Reader Scheme
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Part of the AHRC’s Cultural Value Project, concerned to understand the specific value components of cultural experiences, this project has developed innovative, interdisciplinary methodologies for capturing multi-dimensional aspects of the reading experience. It seeks (1) to identify the unique value of shared reading as it is experienced by individuals and test the hypothesis that serious literature has power to create both individual meaningfulness and a strongly interactive small community; (2) to investigate the inter-relation between intrinsic literary affect and individual mental health and community well-being. For more information, please see reports below.
Funder, British AcademyA preliminary investigation of the efficacy for chronic pain sufferers The Reader Organisation’s Get into Reading (GIR) shared read aloud model, as compared with a standard intervention for chronic pain, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). We hypothesise that, where CBT characteristically 'manages' emotions by means of systematic techniques, GIR helps turn passive experience of suffering emotion into articulate contemplation of painful concerns, and that GIR is a potentialalternative and/or follow-up to CBT for chronic pain sufferers.
(Contributing) Evaluation of The Reader Organisation’s ‘City of Readers’ project
The Reader Organisation is the official partner in the Liverpool mayoral campaign to transform Liverpool into the foremost reading city in the country and a national leader in school standards. The Reader Organisation is extending its shared reading initiative as widely as possible across Liverpool schools, training staff and volunteers, ranging from parents to sixth-form and university students, to read for pleasure with younger children across the city. This research will evaluate the mutual benefit to school, university, student, teacher, parent and child of the involvement of student volunteers in the City of Readers campaign.
Read to Care: An Investigation into Quality of Life Benefits of Shared Reading Groups for People Living with Dementia
Funded by NHS North West. The primary aim of this project was further to investigate by both quantitative and qualitative methods the impact that engaging in a shared reading group activity (poetry group sessions) had on participants. (2013-1014) Report includes introduction from Melvyn Bragg: Read to Care Report.
A Literature-Based Intervention for Women Prisoners
Funder, Dept of Health/Home Office. Partnership with National Personality Disorder Team. Assessing viability of transfer of 'Get into Reading' programme to a secure setting and the benefits of shared reading to the well-being of female prisoners with personality disorder. (2011-2012)
Funder, Dept of Culture, Media and Sport via Public Engagement Foundation. Investigating benefits of Get into Reading groups for chronic pain sufferers at Royal Liverpool Hospital - one of four arts' interventions (with drama, music,art) investigated in clinical settings (2012-2013)
Participatory Arts for Well-Being: Past and Present Practices
Arts and Humanities Research Council, Connected Communities Programme. Collaboration with Universities of Exeter and Glamorgan. Network of academics, community arts practitioners and organisations, policy makers and health professionals to explore role of participatory arts in community well-being. (2011-12)
A Literature-Based Intervention for Older People living with Dementia
Funder, Headley Trust. Assessing benefits of Get into Reading groups for older people in residential care homes and hospitals in Merseyside and Greater Manchester. (2012)
Reading for Pleasure in Liverpool Schools
A pilot project, funded by the University of Liverpool in partnership with Liverpool Children’s Services which places undergraduate School of the Arts students in Liverpool schools with children struggling emotionally, socially or educationally. This is not a narrow literacy improvement programme, but an investigation into the value of reading for pleasure in relation to children’s well-being.
A Practice-Informed Study of the Theoretical Bases for Bibliotherapy
Funder, Arts and Humanities Research Council (Collaborative Doctoral Award Programme). This PhD is the first of its kind to seek to demonstrate the relation of literature and reading to health and wellbeing. In partnership with Mersey Care NHS Mental Health Trust, and building on the University of Liverpool’s groundbreaking MA in Reading in Practice, the project explores the existing theoretical foundations for the practice of bibliotherapy, or ‘reading as cure’, in the English literary tradition.
