News and Blogs

We're sharing here a few blogs and articles from people who have been taking a step back and reflecting on the experience and implications of covid-19. First, Francois Matarasso has written three blogs considering amongst other things Arts Council England's response to the situation, and meditating on offline solutions.

UCL Behavioural Science & Health has launched a study into the psychological and social effects of Covid-19 in the UK.

The Isle is Full of Noises from Hearing the Voice on Vimeo.

The Health Foundation and the Institute for Health Equity have launched their report Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On, showing that health inequalities are increasing. Culture remains largely absent from its the recommendations, although the report

While great strides have been taken in research into participant experiences of Arts in Health, there has so far been very little exploration of practitioners’ perspectives (Naismith, 2019). This study will investigate the experiences of Arts in Health practitioners/ artists working in health, social care and participatory settings.

From Monday January 27 until Friday January 31 2020 professionals from Belgium, Canada, Israel, Hong Kong, Italy, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Canada gathered at Great Museum North: Hancock in Newcastle for a unique training week on the deployment of cultural heritage for outreach activities with a focus on wellbeing. It was very intense and busy, but I am trying to summarize this week in a nutshell.

As many of you will have seen, Arts Council England has published its new strategy: Let's Create. Like the National Lottery Heritage Fund's strategic funding framework (published last year) it is full of references to health and wellbeing. This has not come from nowhere. The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance would like to acknowledge the hard work of all our members and partners, and everyone else who took part in the ACE consultation process, whether they went to meetings or responded online, and made the case for considering health and wellbeing, as well as supporting the broader shift towards inclusive, participatory creative and cultural practice. All this has led to what Nicholas Serota refers to in his introduction as "the dissolving of barriers between artists and the audiences with whom they interact".

There is now substantial research and evidence, which shows that taking part in performing arts activity brings benefits for older people living longer. TV programmes such as the BBC’s Our Dementia Choir illustrate beautifully the power music can have in reducing the impact of symptoms such as depression and agitation, and in turn the isolation that those living with dementia feel. These improvements in quality of life can often be greater than any symptom control provided by drugs, which are hugely expensive to the NHS over the lifespan of an individual’s illness.

“D-IAGNOSIS! Arts to Preserve Wellbeing” has been commissioned from artist Jane Frere by Arts 4 Dementia.

I do find when I work from home it’s easy to just keep going until you’re exhausted but I make sure I have breaks where I might just sit in the garden with a cup of tea for 5 minutes, do some yoga at lunchtime or go for a long walk at the end of the day to switch off.

The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance in partnership with Derby City Council is looking to commission an East Midlands' artist to create artworks for the CHWA 2020 Awards

The experiences in libraries, as well as my training in social work, convinced me that culture and the arts could potentially help many more people than traditional social work. I am committed to gathering together even more of an evidence base to prove the link between well-being and participation in heritage and culture.

In partnership with Arts Development at Derby City Council we are offering 10 free spaces to attend A Culture of Care to freelance creative practitioners and carers who live, or whose practice, is based in Derby.

The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is joining forces with the Network for Arts, Heritage and Design in Hospitals, Arts & Health South West, and London Arts & Health to be on the new Julie's Bicyle Acceler

Summary: This workshop will explore key principles and methodologies for evaluating arts for health and wellbeing programmes, examining the opportunities and challenges linked to embedding evaluation best practice appropriately, creatively and robustly.

Part of my role is ...supporting libraries so they can deliver health and wellbeing activities, ranging from regular groups such as colour me calm, to one off activities like wellbeing days with the library smoothie bike!

by Alan Dix, Artistic Director 509 Arts This was originally a talk given by Alan at the Creative Arts and Dementia Conference, MAC Birmingham, on 24 September 2019. The featured image above is from Live Music Now's LIBOR concerts.

Are you connected with the arts and/or culture in palliative care? Are you an artist, project lead, programme coordinator, or health professional who interacts with patients using the arts and/or culture in pal

Please find responses linked below from: The Museums Association on all the parties' manifestos

Cultural Heritage for Mental Health will bring together experts from all over the world and different sectors for the second time in Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent (Belgium) on 10 and 11 December 2020.

The Foundation has published two significant new resources for creative ageing: Around the World in 80 Creative Ageing Projects and

My days are spent experimenting with visuals in the studio and exploring scientific/health research ... A few days each term I work as a physiotherapist at a school for Deaf children in London. I also support a young person in my family who recently developed a couple of autoimmune diseases.

My work is very varied. I love devising...spotting gaps and devising responses...so I tend have one foot in practice and another in strategic development and advocacy, which of course always needs doing. As my friend likes to say...’the fight is real’.

As chair of Museum Detox, a network for BAME museum and heritage workers I am particularly interested in looking at wellbeing through building resilience especially for people with additional emotional labour through the intersectional identities they have.

Not sure a typical day exists, no two days are the same and that’s just how I like it! There is always a lot on - mix of supporting, mobilising and connecting with people and always the challenging of balancing inside the building and outside the museum work.

Deadline: 16 December 2019 A new National Social Prescribing Special Interest Group is calling for case studies focused on activity to support the early years and 1001 days agenda and/or new mothers. The case studies will be used to compile a national handbook for commissioners on how culture can promote wellbeing in these contexts.

My work and career has always had an intersection between something creative and something broadly around delivering social policy outcomes – e.g. heritage and participation; the built environment and community-led regeneration; artistic learning, and of course more recently, the visual arts and wellbeing.

One day I will be setting out chairs and making tea in a hospital for a singing for breathing group, the next I’ll be at an NHS research committee approving a physio dance project, then I’ll be at Soho House meeting a potential donor for lunch. Then back to the chairs again.

For the last 18 months I have had the pleasure of working with the World Health Organisation on their developing agenda around arts and health. This month, we have released the largest evidence report ever published on arts and health.

A new review of evidence has been published by the World Health Organization. The synthesis report, written by Daisy Fancourt and Saoirse Finn "aims to close this awareness gap by mapping the current available evidence in the field of arts and health." The report focuses largely on the WHO European Region and collates results from over 3,000 studies.

The Repository for Arts and Health Resources was originally created by Angus McLewin and Stephen Clift of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, on behalf of the RSPH Special Interest Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing.

The Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network (LAHWN) hosted a vibrant and well-attended network event this October and generously offered us a workshop space to explore climate change with members of the network, following up on ideas generated by our

Image: Some of the founding group. From left to right: Vic McEwan, Claire Hooker, Karen Kerkhoven, Christine McMillan, Helen Zigmond, Ian Thomson, Michele Jersky, Christopher Smith. A new Arts and Health Network has been launched for New South Wales in Australia.

Nick Ewbank Associates were commissioned by Voluntary Arts to produce this review for BBC Music Day 2019. The paper includes discussions of the physiological benefits of music; music and empathy; and the value of music participation for both personal wellbeing and social cohesion. Key findings the paper highlights include

"This is why we use technology and are constantly drawn back to it, by thinking of it in a malleable way, like a medium, it allows us to uncover new aesthetics and new ways to approach conversations and real world interactions."

Kyunghee Kwon, program coordinator of the educational community development team at the South Korean Arts and Culture Education Service (KACES), met the Health and Wellbeing team at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge this September to learn more about their work.

We're summarising here some of the discussions that took place during our first twitter chat – especially for those of you who are not on twitter (or you can find the chat on twitter here).

The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance's official response to the final draft of Arts Council England's strategy is attached here.

The following blog for our international pages is based on keynote remarks delivered at the inaugural

A few things you need to know about Barnsley… We are a town born of industrious makers, grafters, rebels, campaigners and creatives. 

" Art allows us freedom". Nigel, a poet from Barnsley, shares his experience of using creativity and culture to navigate, soothe and understand his illness and recovery.

Power and Privilege in the 21st Century Museum was devloped through the Museums Association Transformers: Diversify programme. The report aims to provide practical tools for transforming museums.

It’s so important to raise our heads above the parapet when we can, to get a sense of things afresh. I do this is by going to talks or symposia on subjects I know little about but take a broader interest in. This for me can be enriching beyond words and I’m excited as today is one of those days.

How do urban noises affect our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing? From 6-8 September a new participatory art project ‘KIMA: Noise’ will explore the effects of noise on well-being through an interactive installation at Maxilla Space, North Kensington.

I have been doing this (May Project Gardens) for 12 years and I'm always inspired by the transformative nature of the work we do with people and organisations.

A blog by Morgan Salisbury You’re walking round a museum, and the noise in the entrance area echoes and makes you feel like you’re in a swimming pool of random noises, pain jutting at your ears. You turn your collar up and think about getting out the ear defenders buried at the bottom of your rucksack, then realise there’s no room to put your bag down to rummage.

I write this short reflective piece as I retire from my role as manager of Healing Arts for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust at the end of August 2019, having arrived to work with the then Isle of Wight Health Authority in June 1986.

Produced in response to the growth of the youth climate strikes in the UK, this new guide from Kids in Museums is designed to help museums support youth climate activism and collaborate with young people on events, exhibitions and debates. It was produced in partnership with Climate Museum UK, the Happy Museum Project and Julie's Bicycle.

The APPG for Arts, Health & Wellbeing, Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network have partnered to publish a briefing for Integrated Care System planning.

The Directors of Age of Creativity and the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance have co-written a new article for Age UK's magazine, EngAGE. Read the article here (p.16)

The World Economic Forum journal has reported on Denmark's new 'culture vitamins' scheme to address depression:

The Slow GIF Movement seeks to make online space more inclusive with gently looping GIFs. Rhiannon Armstrong, supported by The Space and Unlimited, is pleased to announce the launch of The Slow GIF Movement on 15 August 2019, to coincide with National Relaxation Day.

"Through the making of Instrumental Health, I interviewed so many inspiring people. It really was a massively important experience for me personally as I learnt more about myself and the mental health issues I’ve struggled with in silence for so many years."   What have you been doing today?

The National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance has published new guidance for artists and arts organisations interested in working in criminal justice settings, Enhancing arts and culture in criminal justice settings – a partnership approach.

The international conference on Storytelling and Well-being across Media Borders will be held at the University of Potsdam, Germany from 25-26 June 2020.

The Health Foundation has published an assessment of the Prevention Green Paper by David Finch.

The final regional dissemination events for Creative Health were held in Reading on 2nd May and in Ipswich on 16th May. You can watch the Reading event on YouTube and find out more about both in the APPG Annual Report (see below).

"Fullscope" brings together seven organisations who support mental wellbeing in children and/or young people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Fullscope is a 3-year programme to improve provision, establish clearer opportunity pathways, and have national significance in influencing the sector as a whole. The Fullscope consortium is:

‘There is growing evidence that engagement in activities like dance, music, drama, painting and reading help ease our minds and heal our bodies. It is most encouraging to see just how much potential and ambition there is for joined up action on this vital work in Norfolk.’ Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England.

The APPG for Arts, Health & Wellbeing and Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance have produced new guidance for for STP and ICS Planning, available here.

" I’ve been a counsellor and counselling supervisor for 25 years and in the last decade I’ve moved much more into the world of expressive arts as i think creative expression is so helpful for wellbeing and resilience."

" My PhD is about using archaeology as a form of therapy for people who are living with trauma — I’ve seen first-hand how useful and life-changing it can be, and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else."

Please find attached the  Minutes of the meeting CHWA North East group consensus

The new Nordic Journal of Arts, Culture and Health is an open access journal - with its first issue scheduled for November 2019. The journal will provide a platform for publication and debate in the interdisciplinary field of arts and culture in healthcare and health promotion.

We envisage a country transformed by its culture and at the same time, constantly transforming it: a truly creative nation in which we all can play our part. (Shaping the Next Ten Years: Draft strategy for consultation, p.6)

We invite members' comments on our draft declaration and resources. Read more here

by Douglas Noble, Strategic Director for Wellbeing, Live Music Now 

Over 500 events later and Creativity & Wellbeing Week is officially a national festival...

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"...the life blood of what we do--the arts that we bring to Barts Health--propels me to visit artists’ studio as well as meetings with potential cultural partners. 

We like big numbers here at BBC Music Day HQ. 14 million on radio. 13 million on TV. 1000 live music events across the UK. 100 external partners. 100 BBC production teams across TV, radio and digital. And we want to build on that this year – with your help.

'Look at Paintings', a free website which innovatively partners techniques of Mindful meditation with Art Appreciation, with the aim of producing immediate benefits to the viewer, has now gone live.

"I’ve always had an interest in how music can inspire, encourage, console and restore people."

The Creative Industries Federation and Arts Council England have together launched a new report, Public Investment, Public Gain. The report makes case for the central role that public investment in arts and culture plays generating commercial returns across the economy.  

Wednesday 26 June is National Writing Day, led by First Story - a national literacy charity, working with 55 partner organisations. #nationalwritingday

The Art Fund's new Calm and Collected report has set out the ways in which museums could - and already do - impact our wellbeing. The report is based on a survey of over 2,500 adults in the UK, as well as a small number of in-depth interviews. It assesses rising levels of stress and anxiety across the UK, and the difficulties we have in creating space for ourselves.

A new £62 million fund has been announced by Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright. The fund will support heritage in high streets. The funding includes:

" My fellow Storyteller and I went into Manchester Children’s hospital to tell stories and were inspired by the courage of the children and dedication of the staff."

" Museums do a huge amount of work in health and wellbeing; it is largely about reflecting and telling stories which has an incredibly powerful effect on people."

Tony Fisher is known as a determined, creative individual, (which we can second), who works across many art-forms; art, photography, poetry, film and socially engaged practice.

" I have been working as a Biodanza Teacher since 2011. Most of the work I do with people who are elderly or have disabilities and / or medical conditions."

"It can be an amazing learning experience from so many perspectives."

Friday 17 May, Newcastle Centre for Life

A poem by Lynne Rawlings with an introduction from Corina Harrison, WEA and Arts, etc

In January 2018, Perspectivesin Public Health published a Special Issue on Arts, Health & Wellbeing focusing on the content of presentations from the Culture, Health & Wellbeing International Conference held in Bristol in June, 2017.

Te Ora Auaha: Creative Wellbeing Alliance was launched launched in April 2019 by Carmel Sepuloni, New Zealand Minister of Social Development and Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. Te Ora Auaha: Creative Wellbeing Alliance Aotearoa is made up of individuals, groups and organisations across the arts, health, youth, social and education sectors.

Creative Freedom has published a Manifesto for Mental Health in Arts Professional to address the difficulties of maintaining mental health in creative and cultural careers. Colin Beesting, founder of Creative Freedom, says

A sincere thank you to everyone who filled out the Alliance's annual survey. You can find a summary report here. In total 99 people filled out the annual survey. We do not have permission to share comments publicly, so we have just included statistics here.

Responses to Arts Council England’s strategic proposals for 2020-2030 have been published by the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance, and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing. A number of the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance’s partners are also signatories on its response.

What is the past, present and future role of arts in health? As part of Paintings in Hospitals' 60th anniversary celebrations, the organisation is convening a panel to consider the past pioneers and future innovations of visual arts in health and social care.

A new national network has been set up for anyone who takes responsibility for arts, heritage and design in hospitals. The group is being hosted by the NHS national performance advisory group and letters will be sent to all hospital arts managers in the UK and all NHS trusts for people to sign up.

We are thrilled that over 3,600 of you have signed up to be members of the Alliance and receive this monthly bulletin. This is our first annual survey. To help us support you, please fill out this short survey, which covers general questions about the Alliance, its new website and the bulletin.

The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance's first annual conference ended with a bang - a whole load of bangs in fact - on 21 and 22nd March at Great North Museum: Hancock, with a performance from The Lawnmowers Beat This!

"I started working at The Beaney 6 months ago as the Health and Wellbeing Coordinator. But, I would consider that I first started working in a role that involves working with culture, health and wellbeing when I became a Primary School teacher in 1998 - 21 years ago."

“I saw no platform for young people with direct and indirect experience for mental illness, so I created one.”

Nordic Arts and Health Research Network hosts an Arts & Health conference on 21st May 2019 in Malmö, Sweden with focus on Arts & Health practice.

The Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent was on 29 and 30 November 2018 the meeting point for individuals from the public, academic, third sector and voluntary sectors who work on cultural heritage and wellbeing.

Sensing Culture This story shares how The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge are working together with partners and their local visually impaired community to enable more meaningful access to creative and cultural experiences to boost wellbeing, raise awareness and create a more inclusive space.

Alex Coulter, Director of Arts & Health South West, continues to provide the secretariat and project management for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG), on behalf of the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

"I started working within the field back in 2008, but it has always been central to thinking as a creative, linking with my innate curiosity about how the arts and culture, particularly music and singing, can transform peoples’ health and lives."

Kate Smith is an award-winning children’s illustrator/designer and a workshop leader, who has a diagnosis of  ‘Acute and transient Psychotic Disorder’ which was triggered by stress and anxiety in 2005.  Kate was encouraged to make Christmas cards by an Occupational Therapist from the Early Intervention Service in Derbyshire as a coping strategy.

A story by Michelle, sharing the reflections of her family on the role of dance in Rita, her mother’s life, both before and after her diagnosis with dementia.

Creative Directions darts (Doncaster Community Arts) submission of a story that represents personal experiences of the impact of creativity, culture and the arts on health and wellbeing.

This story begins with an introduction from Naomi, who shares with us her experiences of being a full-time carer, Mum, nurse and painter and why now is the right time to share her story and her artwork.

“The arts made me look forward, think, engage and stimulate and that had a wealth of benefits. I realised it was something to hold on to.”

Excerpts from Beyond The Illness, Art n’ the Human experience by Shanali Perera, MBBS MRCP “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” ~ Aristotle

I have been thinking about cooperation a lot lately. The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance is a small organisation in terms of resource – but in terms of partnership and collaboration its reach is enormous. Over 3,000 people have now signed up as members, along with almost 70 partner organisations.

A story by Lorna Collins I have suffered from a number of psychiatric illnesses over the past eighteen years, following a serious Traumatic Brain Injury. I am now very much in recovery.

A story by Carole Fotheringham This is a story about how cultural activities are contributing to healing and enriching my life after a life threatening illness.  How it seems culture, friendship and laughter have the ability to cure all.

A story by Dave Logan, Chair of Parkinson’s UK – Swindon & District Branch, who has lived with Parkinson’s for sixteen years. I have had Parkinson’s for over 15 years and celebrated my 70th birthday this July.  I have been lucky in that the progressive nature of my Parkinson’s has been slow.  

This has been inspired by the work of the medical staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital – in particular, the ICU staff.

I spun a web and wrapped it round my life; fine spider silk: the type we’re taught to make. A sticky weave of working mum and wife; bespoke design – its cords would never break. High praise I netted in for such rich yarn; a gossamer of love cocooned my home, a strategist at work, a queen of charm;

The Beaney’s Power of the Object programme – a dementia & social isolation story   It’s been important to both me and my mum because it’s given Mum the opportunity to come out and do something constructive and it seems to me that she gets some kind of stimulation that lasts for 2 or 3 days afterwards.  Paul Langley,  Carer

Photo: Unconventionally Beautiful, MI MI Media   A story by Jenni Burrows. You’ll Be Fine began as a form of ‘practical mindfulness’ in response to my diagnosis of a rare form of cancer-Primary Cutaneous CD30+ Anaplastic large Cell lymphoma(ALK-).

The Alliance ‘s first annual conference, Cultures of Health and Wellbeing was held at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums in Newcastle on the 21st and 22nd March 2019.

London Arts in Health Forum and the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance are working together to expand Creativity and Wellbeing Week into a national event, building on its enormous success across London. Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2019 will run from 10-16 June 2019.

The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance is a national organisation representing everyone who believes that cultural engagement and participation can transform our health and wellbeing. We are developing a new statement of values and would like your help to answer the following questions:

Matt Hancock’s speech on 6 November – ‘The power of the arts and social activities to improve the nation’s health’ – is enormously significant.

The UN has told us that we have 12 years to sort out climate change. This is the largest health and wellbeing – and indeed cultural – challenge we face.