Dancing Towards Quality of Life
Megan Cooley
Brigham Young University
Recently my
mother started volunteering with homeless children once a week teaching art
lessons. The children are various ages, each coming from hard family
background, each experiencing homelessness with their family. She has been
doing this for several weeks now, and has loved watching the change that she
sees in the children each week as they come to class at St. Ann’s Homeless
Shelter. I chose the article, “It Gives Me Purpose”: The Use of Dance with
People Experiencing Homelessness, by Melissa Knestaut, under direction of Mary
Ann Devine CTRS, and Barbara Verlezza, because I have become really interested
with my moms experience and wanted to read a study that was similar to see its conclusion.
Article Summary
Knestaut
began this project when a homeless shelter opened in a suburban Midwest town
and was asking for volunteers. In response, she made first contact with the
shelter. The shelter serves as a transitional housing opportunity for up to 35
residents while they look for work and a home. The shelter provided many social
services and educational opportunities, but Knestaut noticed that the residents
had few opportunities for self-expression or meaningful physical outlets. Upon
orientation to the processes and goals of the homeless shelter, she noted that
while many resources were provided to ensure basic needs were met, very few
leisure opportunities existed to encourage coping skills, increased quality of
life, and autonomy for the residents. Familiar with the benefits of leisure and
therapeutic recreation, she proposed to use the TR process to implement a
program to address some of the leisure needs of the participants. She then
began teaching a weekly dance class in an attempt to provide a means to cope with
stress, create a sense of belonging for participants, and help to improve their
quality of life (Knestaut, Devine & Verlezza, 2010).
Article Strengths
Knestaut
stated several times the psychological problems that occur with homelessness,
whether chronic or acute. Those included depression, stress, alienation, lack
of continuity in their life, and uncertainty of their future. In other pages
she also included loneliness, isolation, guilt, hopelessness, loss of
confidence, disconnection, and emptiness. These findings strengthened the
article because it allows the reader to take a different perspective.
Personally, I had never really thought about the negative effects of
homelessness on someone’s psyche. I
don’t think many people pass someone living on the street and think, “He must
really feel shame and lack of confidence.” No, most people think how bad that
would be if that were them, or wonder what the person did to get to that point
in their life.
That leads
me to another strength in the article, where Knestaut stated most common
reasons for homelessness. Those included unemployment (i.e., insufficient
income), to natural disasters, unstable mental health, or victims of domestic
violence (Knestaut, et al 2010). This is another area where perspective can
change. Many individuals view homelessness as laziness, or relating to drugs,
but in many cases it is much more complex and devastating than that.
Another
strength of the study was that before the program started, Knestaut sat down
individually with several of the participants and did interviews about which
types of music they were interested in, which types of dances they wanted to
learn, and their backgrounds. Knestaut thought this was a valuable step in the
project because it opened the door for a relationship with the participants,
and provided a foundation of trust and acceptance from the very beginning.
Kenstaut
noted a very important finding, which grants An additional concern expressed by
the staff of the shelter was that residents had social networks and leisure
preferences that were destructive or counterintuitive to the services being
provided. Thus, the dance program was designed and implemented in an effort to
decrease stress, increase positive feelings, and encourage self-determination
and the use of dance as a coping mechanism with individuals who are homeless.
Article Weaknesses
There was a very significant weakness
with this project, and it has to do with sampling size, and inconsistency of
the study. Knestaut wrote that representing the Caucasian race, nine
participated, representing the Latina race, one participated, and African
American race, one participated. Participants ranged in ages of 18-50, including
three male and eight female adults. Residents were encouraged to take part in a
free dance class offered twice a week for eight weeks. Not all were able to
attend every class because of varied schedules and transitions into new homes.
Many participants were only residing at the shelter long enough to be involved
in one class, some participated two, or three times, and the maximum consistency
of participation was four classes, by only two people (Knestaut, et al 2010).
I thought that based on this type of
study, it would be ineffective to base psychological improvement results on a
short eight week study where only two individuals participated for the duration
of the project. It doesn’t allow for statistically significant evidence. Also,
based on the relatively small sample size, results may be biased, or skewed.
Another weakness with the program, was
the amount of confidentiality required and maintained by the shelter and the
individuals throughout the entire project. Kenstaut was not allowed to know a
lot of data about the participants because of confidentiality laws and
standards that the shelter held. I feel this limited the amount of help that
could be given through the debriefing assessments that were held after each
dance session. I can imagine that it was challenging to really influence lives,
and get to know participants with such limitations.
Results and Responses
Data
were collected for program evaluation purposes rather than scientific re-
search purposes. Before and after the adult class each participant completed a
survey containing a Likert-type scale (1 not at all to 5 extremely) on which
they rated the degree to which they were feeling happy, motivated, relaxed,
depressed, frustrated, energetic, sad, joyful, stressed, and tired (Knestaut et
al). Responses were mostly positive and showed that individuals felt more
energetic, more relaxed, and more joyful, however it is important to keep in
mind that these responses are from 11 individuals, of which only a couple
participated fully.
I found it
enlightening and hopeful that even individuals who only participated some of
the time, still felt the difference that recreation brought to their daily
lives, and potential it carried to make their lives better. Some of the
participants asked for the dance program to be extended, and for Knestaut to
teach more frequent classes.
Overall,
the participants reported a greater sense of belonging, self determined
behavior, and experienced reduces stress. It shows that dance, among other
various forms of recreation, can be a coping mechanism for hardships, even ones
as severe as homelessness.
References
Knestaut, M.,
Devine, M. A., & Verlezza, B. (2010). "it gives me purpose": The
use of dance with people experiencing homelessness. Therapeutic Recreation
Journal, XLIV(4), 289-301.
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