What we do
Taiteen Sulattamo is a mental health association that exists to increase prosperity through art. Participating in our activities does not require an artistic background.
Taiteen Sulattamo is open to all individuals, regardless of one’s background. We organize a number of different art workshops, education and group activities, mainly targeted at individuals who have been struggling with mental health and/or substance abuse.
We also organize workshops focusing on the processes of performing arts. The topic that our participants want to process, is chosen from themes that occur in the workshops. We involve the participants in every part of the process. Within the chosen theme we then create a professionally produced art project, a play for example. The process increases the quality of life by engagement, involvement and expression.
Commitment towards a common goal – in this case an art project – and working as equals with professional artists has an invaluable impact on individuals in recovery.
We also engage in development projects which create innovations using arts methods in well-being and mental healthcare. These projects are funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. We offer our services to both individuals in recovery and health care personnel.
Experts by Experience Activities
“Experts by Experience = people with lived experience of mental illness
There is rich evidence showing that people who have experience of using mental health services are uniquely placed to help plan and develop those services in the future. Service users and their carers are ideally placed to educate and de-stigmatise the issue of mental health one person; one team; one organization at a time. ”
Taiteen Sulattamo has created an educational and operating model for experts by experience that utilizes arts-based methods.
In our context, an expert by experience is someone who has a history of living with mental illness and they share their experiences with people suffering from similar issues, their family or care providing authorities to provide experiential knowledge. In a crisis, internal experience can be difficult to put into clear words and that is where our arts-based methods give people a more sensory form of communication and help us to reach a deeper level of understanding than just words.
Taiteen Sulattamo ry offers educational programs for our target group to extend their experts by experience expertise. Our Experts by Experience Educators also educate new Experts by Experience.
Arts-based Peer Support
Taiteen Sulattamo offers an educational program for individuals who are interested in acting as a peer support group instructor with an operating model based on applied arts.
The educational program and operating model are solidly grounded in recovery orientation and sociocultural learning theory.
Examples of our Development Projects
Taiteen Sulattamo has created several development projects through its lifetime: one of them is called Kokemuksesi on arvokas (Your experience is valued) (from 2022 – till end of 2024)
The main focus of the project is to develop a common core curriculum, a quality certification system and a model for accreditation of prior experiential learning that benefits all experts by experience education in Finland.
We work in cooperation with a wide range of providers in the field. We are hoping to provide a clearer system that helps the educator to verify the quality and level of their educational program and for the expert by experience to reinforce their existing knowledge and skills.