External evaluation of the Leonardo da Vinci MUSA project

Written By Paola Le Moglie
Publishing 13 January 2017

In 2016, Pietro Celotti and Paola Le Moglie delivered to Fondazione dell’Ospedale Salesi Onlus(lead partner) the final evaluation report of the MUSA project.

The external evaluation of the MUSA ‘MUSic, performing and creative Arts professions involved in healthcare: a portal for VET promotion and mutual recognition of profiles’ project, co-financed in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Programme, started in June 2015 and lasted one year. The project involved seven partners, from Italy, Latvia, Poland, Turkey and the U.K.

Three are the main topics of the evaluation activities:

1. Evaluation of the project management;
2. Evaluation of the project results, including MUSA portal;
3. Sustainability of the project results.

The methodologies used for performing the evaluation are a literature review of the main programme documents, a specific questionnaire survey focused on the evaluation of the project result and a focus group with the project partners, held in Ancona the 9th of May ( Europe Day ) in the occasion of the last project meeting.

According to the evaluation findings, the project contributed to a better identification of the co-therapies professions in all partners’ countries. Annarita Settimi Duca, from Fondazione dell’Ospedale Salesi Onlus, as coordinator of the project, emphasized that the main added value of the projects is the improved definition of the professional profiles related to co-therapies. This is, indeed, a fundamental step to a) enhance people’s awareness regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of co-therapies, and b) create the basis for the development of a common legal framework for creative and performing art professions in Europe, even beyond the European Union.

Moreover, the evaluation showed that the availability of information regarding the effectiveness of co-therapies has increased in all partner countries. The guidelines on professional profiles related to co-therapies are effectively followed in the health facilities involved in the project (e.g. Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Ospedali Riuniti from Italy) and, additionally, some project partners (in Turkey, Poland and U.K.) referred that some other health facilities, not directly involved in the project, have started to follow MUSA guidelines.

As emerged during the final International Conference on the Co-therapies in Healthcare, public institutions, associations and foundations as well as learning providers should:

• Stimulate the dialogue towards the establishment of a legal framework for the co-therapies;
• Consider the use of grants / funding tenders;
• Increase the exchange of good practices;
• Improve the communication and dialogue between the stakeholders;
• Implement pilot studies for the validation of the results.

This project evaluation builds on the past project evaluation experiences of t33, as the evaluation of the LOCSEE project and ClusterPoliSEE project, both financed under the South East Europe Programme. The evaluation of individual projects is a valuable occasion for t33 experts to interact in an intensive way with project partners and local stakeholders, so improving the capacity to assess the results generated at micro-level.