Creative arts therapies (CAT) provide a safe and creative environment for older adults to process life experiences and maintain personal growth while aging. There is a growing need to make creative arts therapies more accessible to the aging population, as many have limited access to these services. This need has been catalyzed by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tele-CAT offers a possible solution. This study explored the experiences of older adults who participated in an online creative process of digital photocollage based on CAT. Twenty-four Italian and Israeli community-dwelling older adults aged 78 to 92 participated in this research through Zoom teleconferencing software. Transcriptions of the sessions and the art produced through the photocollage were qualitatively analyzed through Thematic Analysis. The findings show that the projective stimuli of digital photographs supported older adults’ narratives and engaged them in a more embodied emotional experience. Participant experiences involved artistic enjoyment within a positive and safe interaction with therapists. The creation of digital photocollages allowed the participants to process their life experiences and create an integrative view of their life, a vital developmental task in late life. These results point to the advantages and challenges of tele-CAT for older adults.

Social isolation and loneliness are increasing in our contemporary western society and seem to correlate with suicide in adolescents and young adults. Social Workers are a potential resource to create such initiatives and projects that promote inclusion and cohesion within communities, a protective factor against suicide. Sixty-two Social Work BA students participated in a Death Education course based on education on suicide prevention. Participants carried out two activities. First, they were invited to complete two written semi-structured interviews on young people’s reasons for living and dying. Second, they were invited to design suicide prevention interventions targeted at their peers and adolescents. Data were analyzed qualitatively within the Thematic Analysis framework. As regards the first activity, four main themes were identified: (1) Internet and social media; (2) social isolation and loneliness; (3) the importance of proximal relationships; and, (4) the importance of networking between proximal relationships, educational institutions and mental health services. Whereas, as for suicide prevention interventions, three main ideas were identified: (1) suicide prevention through community and networking between services; (2) academic institutions: high schools and universities; and, (3) suicide prevention through new technologies. To conclude, Death Education as education on suicide prevention can offer young people a space in which to voice their and their peers’ reasons for living and dying and to reflect upon their contribution to suicide prevention as students and as future professionals.

Older adults and their family caregivers experience nursing home placement as a particularly critical time of life. The present study explored the experiences of family caregivers of nursing home residents taking part in a self-help group for caregivers. The sample was composed of six caregivers of older adults residing in a nursing home in the northeast of Italy. The respondents, aged 57 to 71, were part of a self-help group set up by the facility between 2017 and 2019. In this qualitative methodological design, we applied the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis. Two main themes emerged from the interviews: (a) challenges in constructing experience as caregivers; and (b) shared experiences as stabilizing tools. The findings highlight the importance of self-help groups in fostering the well-being of caregivers of older adults living in nursing homes. The self-help group enabled caregivers to deal with nursing home placement and the sense of guilt deriving from it; understand and accept the disabilities affecting their loved one; comprehend the experience of ambiguous loss; and learn to listen to their own needs, thus avoiding physical and emotional exhaustion.

Gendered ageism, the intersection of ageism and gender bias, conceptualizes how social constructions shape attitudes toward older women and restrict their access to societal resources. As oppressive gendered ageist stereotypes can affect how older women perceive their embodied selves, interventions tailored to women’s needs are essential to maintaining a positive identity. This research protocol aims to develop an arts-based intervention specifically adapted to the psychosocial needs of community-dwelling older Italian women. It centers on the embodied self-representations of older women from a life-course perspective that integrates narrative and phototherapy techniques. In the first phase of this research project, a pragmatic approach will be taken to explore professionals’ use of phototherapy techniques with aging women; the data will be analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. Building on the findings and the literature, an intervention will then be developed for older women. In the second phase, a narrative approach will be taken to probe the embodied self-representations of older Italian women as expressed in their narratives and photographic art products; the data will be analyzed through polytextual analysis of personal narratives. In the third phase, interviews based on the arts-based approach and the Client Change Interview will be conducted with older women to examine the psychosocial contribution of the intervention and their experiences with the artistic process and products; the data will be analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. To uphold qualitative research rigor, data triangulation, reflexive journaling, auditing, and member checking will be employed. The data collection will be conducted between 2024 and 2025. The findings of this study will shed light on the embodied self-representations of older women in Italy as they emerge in their narratives and phototherapy artworks and will provide an empirically based intervention that integrates narrative and phototherapy techniques tailored to their psychosocial needs.