Latest news

Black History Month Callout for Creative Health Practitioners and Social Justice Advocates
In celebration of Black History Month, London Arts and Health and The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance are commissioning five artists to write a blog exploring their creative practice, showcasing an existing body of work that engages with this year’s theme of ‘Hono
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Photo of one woman teaching another to dance
Akademi Dance Well at Nottingham University Hospital, photo by Lucy Knight.jpg
Guest blog: Building a model for dance in healthcare
The case for this kind of work is no longer in question. It is a well proven fact that dance offers an evidence-based, joyful route into experiencing art and movement that provides real relief from the mundane and often stressful, clinical environment.
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Perspectives on Arts in Health seeking editors
Perspectives on Arts in Health (PAH), an interdisciplinary, open-access journal, is looking for Initial Reviewers and Editorial Board Members.
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A woman sitting at a table with boldly coloured cloth embroidering
Common Ground: A Day in the Life - Elnaz Yazdani
Elnaz Yazdani is an embroidery artist, gardener and educator based in Yorkshire, dedicated to sharing her textile skills and promoting the importance of embroidery as an art form for the future and for community wellbeing.
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A woman wearing a vibrant multi-coloured top and black trousers, leaning against a white porcelain figure head that has grass and leaves for hair.
Odeth Richardson. Photo by Natasha Powell. Taken at the World Federation of Occupational Therapy Conference, Thailand
Common Ground: Day in the Life – Odeth Richardson
Odeth Richardson is an Occupational Therapist, healthcare leader, writer, and community advocate based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Throughout her career, she has championed the role of meaningful occupation, creativity, inclusion, and community connection in supporting health and wellbeing. Odeth will be joining the first panel of the Common Ground conference on the 7th October, discussing, 'Where are the edges of creative health?'
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image of a man in academic robes in a panelled room
Statement following the death of Professor Jason Arday from Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and London Arts and Health
Statement following the death of Professor Jason Arday from Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and London Arts and Health. 
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A woman with light brown wearing a blue t-shirt and a black skirt directing a bald headed male wearing a blue shirt over a white t-shirt and red trousers
Michael Aiden photography
CHWA Conference 2026: Common Ground - Join our Volunteer Team!
We’re looking for up to 20 volunteers for our upcoming conference, Common Ground, on 7-9 October at Barnsley Civic. Deadline Monday 7 September at 5pm.
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a group of young people on stage singing and playing musical instruments
Rob Trendy
Creative Spaces as Community Infrastructure: Making Music, Changing Lives by AudioActive
For more than twenty years, AudioActive has worked with young people across Sussex using music as a way to build confidence, creativity and connection. Hear about their programmes and what survival amidst funding cuts for youth community spaces, truly looks like.
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An image of banners on a wall, the nearest one reads 'unity in community'
Banners by Jane Thakoordin (shown at the CHWA national conference 2023)
CHWA Conference 2026: Bursary Opportunity - deadline 7 September
We're looking for bursary applicants based in Barnsley, Greater London, West Yorkshire and the North East of England.
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A bearded male with short black hair wearing a dark coloured wooly jumper with flecks of colour and black jeans standing in front of seated individuals in a large community space with his hands held in a clapping stance
James Mulkeen
Maya Productions and darts Artist Traineeships
Working in partnership has brought new insight and energy to both organisations, while offering a unique opportunity for emerging artists in South Yorkshire. The programme provides strong representation and sector expertise from artists and mentors from global majority backgrounds, alongside access to a wide range of creative health and learning opportunities across Doncaster.
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A woman with long black hair wearing a grey t-shirt and black trousers standing and gesturing to older people sitting in purple chairs facing her
Age UK, Barnsley
DanceOn: The Small Ways People Find Each Other Again
Chetna Dobhal, facilitator of the DanceOn project in Barnsley shares how movement can help to support connection and challenge the narrative of loneliness within older communities.
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a group of people in blue t-shirts stand with fists raised in front of the houses of parliament carrying placards
Waling Waling Drama Group's Performance of The Migrators at the Parliament Square, June 2025. Photograph by Jacques Tossou Gbeteby Jack Abayomi
Guest blog: Following the Red Knot by Drashti Shah
At a time when migration is increasingly framed through fear and division, theatre offers a different possibility. It creates space for silenced narratives, complexity, and encounter. Through our work with Waling Waling, I have learned that stories do not simply reflect the world as it is—they provoke us to change the world as it could be.
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Two women wearing glasses and thick patterned wooly jumpers kneeling down to paint on a large sheet of paper
Matt Radcliffe
Exploring Creative Health Through Relationships with Place
Artist, creative health practitioner by lived experience and coach, Michaela Lesayova shares her practice of working with communities, cultural organisations and creative health partners to explore how creative practice can support connection, recovery, belonging and a sense of agency.
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Peach coloured graphic with black text and multi-coloured logos and shapes
Guest Blog for Creativity and Wellbeing Week: A Rehearsal Space for Future Goodbyes
Across the UK, schools, libraries, charities, and arts organisations are quietly absorbing forms of emotional support once held elsewhere through extended family networks, stable public infrastructure, or long-term local provision.
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A group of women walking linking arms
Image from Imagining the Forest, international community collaboration between Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival, the Guarani Mbya indigenous people and Karachi Biennale (2025), photo credit Anne Tetzlaff
Guest Blog for Creativity and Wellbeing Week: Cultural reforesting
Summer solstice 2025 saw hundreds of people watch a remarkable performance, Stand of the Sun, created by Bryony Ella with composer Bumi Thomas.
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a large sheet of paper with words and drawings all over it including relationship, blether, joy and meaning
Guest blog: Music in Hospitals & Care - Creativity & Wellbeing Week
Image: drawings from an IMAGINED workshop at St Columba’s Hospice Care during a music and dance activity.It’s Creativity & Wellbeing Week and charity Music in Hospitals & Care is celebrating the work they’ve been doing with the Edinburgh Centre for Research Experience of Dementia (ECRED) at the University of
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photo of a seated woman raising her left arm
Ammerry Salisbury
Guest blog for Creativity and Wellbeing Week: Gentle Thai Dance
In today’s fast-paced world, many of us are searching for simple ways to reconnect with ourselves — to slow down, breathe, and find moments of calm within our daily lives. For me, this journey has been shaped by Thai classical dance, a tradition I have practised since the age of 13, and one that continues to guide both my artistic and personal path.
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textile collage with purple background and a pink heart with the words love is everything inside it, with a number of hands with different skin tones holding the heart from the outside
@soofiya
Voices of Hope at Women for Refugee Women
We start and end our sessions by standing in a circle and singing ‘one love, keep us together. We are, voices of hope.’ How we came to sing this, was through conflict. After the conflict, we decided to create a new space, and a new way of being in space, through a new song. A new song = a new space.
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A group of people sitting down side by side upon a dimly lit stage conversing with one another
The Empty Chair, Chats Palace 16 March 2026, Dexter Robinson
The Empty Chair by Change Act! Theatre
For audiences, there were clear content warnings about the subject matter at the point of booking, onsite and clear signposting was available. We had strong turn outs and participation in the Forum at both the scratch and final performance. A lot of people fed back afterwards that it had genuinely led them to reconsider the way they’d approach friends who were experiencing depression or other mental health issues and how they support others in the community.
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Some Creativity & Wellbeing Week highlights from CHWA's champions around the country
We're sharing here a few events brought together by our regional programme leads and voluntary champions for this Creativity & Wellbeing Week (18-22
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a group of people wearing brightly coloured clothing in an outdoor space smiling and laughing
Creative Recovery, Colour Walk for Creativity and Wellbeing Week
Creativity and Wellbeing Week Barnsley
Barnsley Creativity and Wellbeing Week  18–24 May 2026Here is a taster of some of the events, workshops and exhibitions going on in Barnsley during the national Creativity and Wellbeing Week 
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Barnsley's Support and Nurture Programmes for Creative Health Practitioners
Nurture and Support Programme is here!Creative Recovery have developed two programmes of free events designed to nurture and develop the skills and practise of Barnsley's Creative Health Workforce. 
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2 fully-funded PhDs in museums, heritage, health and wellbeing - deadlines 1 and 10 May
Objects of Care: The Role of Museum Collections in Supporting Young Adults’ Mental Health: Application deadline 10 Mayhttps://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/cssah-ahrc-cc-ee-cdp-morse
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Kids in Museums seeking examples of work with children or families
Can you help? Kids in Museums is creating a free online resource about how museums can support children and families’ mental health and wellbeing. 
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two children leaning over a desk creating a piece of art work with pink thread and coloured paper
Oldham Library, World Wellbeing Map - Paul Daly
Creative Health in Barnsley - what's our next step?
Monday 18th May 12-3pmEvents Room at the Light Box 1 The Glass Works, Barnsley, S70 1GWJoin us for a creative afternoon exploring our priorities for the next year to support creative health delivery, and its workforce, to be the best it can be.
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CHWA ‘Common Ground’ Conference Callout - deadline 1 June
We warmly encourage proposals from creatives, practitioners and communities working across arts, health and education settings who are often excluded from access, visibility and leadership within the cultural and health sectors, including people of diverse racial and cultural heritages, LGBTQ+ communities, Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people, people living with long-term health conditions, and younger people.
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a white woman with short hair smiling standing over two young women creating artwork whilst seated at a table in a classroom setting
Paul Daly Oldham Libraries
Brief for Creativity and Wellbeing Week - Barnsley
Deadline for applications: 5pm, Monday 20th AprilFee: £350 (inclusive of VAT and all expenses); 3 opportunities belowThe Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) is looking for creative practitioners to run 3 sessions to support our work in Barnsley:
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banner advertising the callout
Call for submissions: Big Issue x Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2026 - #CriticalHope ! Deadline for proposals 25 March
London Arts and Health, the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and Arts & Homelessness International are curating an edition of The Big Issue for Creativity & Wellbeing Week (18-22 May 2026). We are seeking proposals for the following, on the theme of critical hope: 1. Articles of 300-1,000 words - they must be accessible and enjoyable for regular readers of the magazine, and written in plain English - definitely no jargon! 2. Creative submissions - anything that could be printed in a 2-dimensional format. This might be a poem, illustration, or something that allows the reader to engage creatively through e.g. a puzzle or colouring-in.
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Black text in a variety of fonts and styles on a baby blue background
Creativity and Wellbeing Week - Critical Hope (for Acute Times)
The national festival of Creative Health: Creativity and Wellbeing Week takes place from the 18th - 24th May 2026 and is an amazing platform to champion and celebrate creative health across the country.
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Text on top of a painted background of flowers and natures
Guest Blog: Dreaming Anti-Ableist Land Work
Usually when I’ve brought up accessibility and disability justice in land stewardship, I’ve gotten confused looks. The looks precede awkward questions, like “what does disability justice have to do with land stewardship?” And “how could disabled people steward land?”
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Early results from our survey – a pressing need for hope and justice
We’ve been living with political problems like austerity for many years; but this political environment is relatively new. The Runnymede Trust has recently published A hostile environment: language, race, surveillance and the media – the second of two reports analysing the language used in parliamentary and media debates. Between 2019 and 2024, ‘illegal’ remains the number one association for ‘immigrants’ and has moved up from fourth to second most strongly associated term for ‘migrant’ in the news data. The Trust says that the report “shows how the UK government and media are complicit in enabling racist violence”.
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Director's blog: responding to the Hodge review
It’s a great relief to see the review recommend that ACE should continue to exist, and retain most of its functions. As many of you know, ACE is the single largest funder of creative health work in England; it supports both the activities and the infrastructure of the creative health and is essential to the health of the sector. Given this, it’s surprising to note that health and wellbeing are entirely absent from the recommendations and even language of the review. But it’s not the only area missing: climate/environment is also absent – as is the public health crisis that the climate and ecological crisis represents. And digital and AI are barely mentioned.
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Older women and men wearing white patterned clothing dancing in a hall
Image: James Mulkeen for darts in Doncaster
Brief for Dance On training and delivery for Barnsley, deadline 23 Feb
Age UK Barnsley and darts are looking for 2 Barnsley-based dance practitioners to be part of an exciting programme of work to improve physical activity, wellbeing and social connection among older adults in our community.
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Statutory Guidelines on Working with People and Communities to be updated – opportunity to submit case studies; deadline 20 Febuary
Following the launch of the 10 Year Plan for the NHS and changes to NHS England (NHSE) and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), NHS England is producing an update to the 2022 Statutory Guidance that sets out how Integrated Care Boards, Foundation Trusts and NHS Trusts should meet their legal duties according to the 2022 Health and Care Act.
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Half-length portrait photo of a woman with long dark hair and a black jumper stannding in front of white bannisters
Image reproduced courtesy of Historic England
Day in the Life: Linda Monckton
Archaeology is a magical process of discovery with huge opportunities for team working, creative practice and largely outdoor physical activity and has been shown to support wellbeing in a myriad of ways.
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A white woman wearing glasses with short black hair and a red top sitting next to a white woman with shoulder length blonde hair who is sitting next to a black woman with locs wearing a pink cardigan smiling
CHWA conference 2023; Image: Michael Aiden Photography
A Year of Creative Health
There are so many big events coming up this year for creative health that we thought we would share a list. We'll add to this as more emerge - let us know if you have any national-scale public events coming up...
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Guest blog: Deborah Munt reflects on stepping down from CHWA's Board
Introduction Victoria Hume, Executive DirectorIn December 2025, Deborah Munt stepped down as a founding non-executive Director of CHWA.
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portrait of a woman with short blonde hair and glasses smiling, on a beach
Day in the Life: Hilary Jennings
There is so much inspiring work out there at the moment which is a great antidote to the current state of the world – and simultaneously a frustration because most of it is under the radar of the traditional media.
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A group of people wearing multi-coloured clothing standing on a stage with dim lighting standing with their hands in the air
Omnibus Theatre - Drashti Shah
Antigone review: Lived experience, creative health, and political resistance
Watching Antigone – International Migrants Day performance at St. Margaret’s House on 16 December 2025, I was struck by how deeply this work understands lived experience and performance – neither too literal nor too abstract a representation, but an inspired and courageous truth-telling – challenging power.
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White text on a baby blue background with a purple horizon at above the text
Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025 Evaluation Report
Creativity and Wellbeing Week (C&WW) 2025 focussed on engaging with diverse practitioners, sector leaders, and regional organisations to spotlight the incredible impact of the creative health sector in the country.
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Call for Proposals: Mental Health & Wellbeing Support for Creative Health Practitioners
A call from Bradford 2025's Creative Health programme:Fee: £2,000 (inclusive)Delivery: January – end February 2026
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South Yorkshire positions Creative Health as a core component of regional health prevention with new 2025–2028 Enabling Plan
South Yorkshire has launched a three-year Creative Health Enabling Plan that sets out how creative and cultural approaches will contribute to tackling health inequalities, reducing pressure on statutory services and supporting the shift toward prevention and community-based care.
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Creative Health Board Learning Network Launch: 11 November, online
Interested in setting up your own Creative Health Board?Keen to learn about what works from around the UK?
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Edge Hill Arts4Us survey: how to improve arts access for young people's mental health
Study Summary 
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New policy brief on sustaining child and youth social prescribing
The Social Prescribing Youth Network – a free network for anyone interested in social prescribing for children and young people – has developed a new policy brief on “
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Seyi Adelekun
Tree of Life (2024) KLA ART ‘24, Kampala, Uganda 
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Dancin' on Extreme
The Dancin' on Extreme project is rooted in expressive and interdisciplinary movement and dance, using contemporary dance influenced by African – Caribbean diasporic storytelling.
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Cultural Transmission by Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno
What does it mean to be an ambassador of East African heritage in Europe and how does it benefit the community? My work in the community has highlighted a thirst for togetherness and connection. In our metropoles we are close to each other physically yet we are also so distant from one another. 
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Lantern Bearers: The Voices who Lit my Path by Amanda Hemmings
When I was knitted in my Mother’s wombI was interlaced with fabrics of tenacity,this construction  became interwoven  with determinationas I became a womanand I’ve sometimes used these threads  to crochet sentences  with the intention to untangle  gender injustices…
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Leaders of Resistance by Chioma Ince
This year’s Black History Month celebrates resilience, strength, and the unshakable drive for progress within the Black community worldwide.
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Black History Month 2025: Standing Firm in Power and Pride
The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance in partnership with London Arts and Health, commissioned six artists/practitioners to explore this year's Black History Month theme, ‘Standing Firm in Power and Pride'.
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a colourful hand-drawn picture of houses and people seen from above.
Ruth Williams for Brave Art, Suffolk Artlink
UK & Ireland State of the Sector Survey for Creative Health
UK & Ireland State of the Sector Survey for Creative Health
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black and white head-and-shoulders photograph of a man looking straight at the camera and smiling
In memory: Lord Howarth of Newport
The Staff and Board at CHWA would like to pay tribute to Alan Howarth, Lord Howarth of Newport, after the announcement of his death on 10 September. Like our friends at the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH), we will miss him, and want to acknowledge the enormous impact that Alan Howarth had on our creative health world through decades of support.
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IMAGINED research project: arts and dementia work survey
Edinburgh University is looking for individuals and organisations to participate in the IMAGINED research project survey.
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black text layered on multi-coloured backgrounds
Black History Month Callout for Creative & Planetary Health Practitioners
To celebrate Black History Month this year, London Arts and Health and The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance will commission six artists to explore and showcase their creative practices.
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Four people, the leadership team of Next Door But One, standing in the sun in front of trees looking happy, all holding a bright and colourful glass award with ‘CHWA - Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance’ on it
NDB1 Leadership team with their CHWA 2025 Award for Practising Well
What we're learning from the CHWA Awards 2025
Our outgoing Events & Programmes Lead, Fiona Moon, analysed the shortlists for our three awards categories: Practising Well, Healthy People & Planet, and Collective Power
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Call Out for ‘The Compelling Case for Creative Ageing’ Examples!
Farrell Renowden, Cultural Development Consultant, and former Director of both the Age of Creativity and CADA- Creative Ageing: Development & Agency, is compiling a new resource, aimed at supporting the Creative Ageing sector to make the case for our work. 
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Skills, wellbeing and belonging in creative health
This brief report looks at the complex question of skills development across creative health – an area which intersects importantly with both the wellbeing of the workforce and its diversity and representativeness.
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Celebrating The Work Behind The Work: Our Events and Programmes Lead Reflects
by Fiona Moon, outgoing Events & Programmes Lead After two meaningful years at CHWA, I’m sad and excited to say I’ll be moving on at the end of June to pursue my PhD—today I’m reflecting on what a journey of growth it’s been for the sector, the organisation and for me as an individual and artist.   
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Please ignore any email from CHWA requesting a quotation
You might have received an email today from our [email protected] address titled 'REQUEST FOR QUOTATION'.This is a fake email, so please delete it. We're taking appropriate steps to re-secure the account, and far as we can tell there's no virus attached but please don't respond to the request.
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A woman wearing blue dungarees with blonde hair holding a large colourful quilt by the roadside
Jane Thakoordin Grenfell Memorial Quilt
Loss and Grief by Jane Thakoordin
Participatory Artist, Jane Thakoordin explores her unique journey of loss and grief within her most recent projects
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Introducing our new Equity Action Plan
Read the Equity Action Plan here as a pdfAn EasyRead version is available here
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a collection of handmade blue-and-white spoons, bowls and buttons photographed from above arranged in a fan shape on a green table
Pathways to Wellbeing at the Holburne Museum, Bath
Guest Blog for Creativity & Wellbeing Week: Dr Chris Stephens, Director of the Holburne Museum
Pathways to Wellbeing - Caring for communities as well as collections
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photo of a cave in a sandstone outcrop in winter with grasses and water surrounding it
Anchor Church, Ingleby Caves in Derbyshire. Photo: Laura Phillips
Reflecting on creative health in Derbyshire: Laura Phillips
So far in my journeys of discovery in Derbyshire I've met a lot of creative, skilled and determined people who are developing new work, building relationships, finding funds and delivering brilliant programmes that have positive health impacts for participants. In the current context this feels at least a little astounding, as the culture, and wider VCSE sectors, have had much of their more dependable funding cut (in many cases completely) and I have also encountered a real sense of vulnerability and fear - particularly for the survival of organisations and the programmes they provide for participants.
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Responding to the current Arts Council England Review
Baroness Hodge of Barking has been appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to conduct an independent review of the Arts Council England (ACE). This survey is an essential part of the evidence collection for this Review. The deadline to respond to the survey has been extended to midday on 30 June.
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A group of people in a room standing with their hands in the air
Next Door But One with Camphill Village Trust. Credit – James Drury
What We’re Seeing: Collective Power Award
CHWAs latest blog series considers how this years CHWA awards help us build a picture of what’s happening in the sector
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two women sitting down at a table smiling at each other doing arts and crafts with a woman standing between them smiling
Oldham Libraries
What We’re Seeing: Healthy People and Planet Award
CHWAs latest blog series considers how this years CHWA awards help us build a picture of what’s happening in the sector
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a group of women standing whilst singing and swaying their hands
James Mulkeen for DARTS
What We’re Seeing: Practising Well Award
CHWAs latest blog series considers how this years CHWA awards help us build a picture of what’s happening in the sector.
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Seeking a Derbyshire Creative Health & Equity Lead!
Salary: £37,853, pro-rated for 0.6FTE (3 days per week). This amounts to £22,712 p.a.Application deadline: 10am on Wednesday 28 May.
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State of the Sector survey 2025
New UK & Ireland State of the Sector Survey 2025 is available here - deadline 31 October 2025
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Seeking an Events & Programmes Lead for CHWA!
Latest update (21 May): the CHWA conference is now likely to be held in our home town of Barnsley instead of Birmingham as previously advertised. Salary: £38,357 p.a. pro-rated for 3 days per week: 23,014 p.a.
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3 new creative health roles!
Please click on the links below for details of three new creative health roles starting this summer. 
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Help develop a WHO Policy Brief on arts and young people's mental health
The World Health Organization Regional Office for E
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Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2025: How to take part
Creativity and Wellbeing Week is back and we are exploring new horizons this year! We would love to hear from organisations and practitioners in the UK's creative health sector and join us in this national festival. We’re listening, and we are excited to amplify the impact of your work.The spotlight is on you! Here’s how you can participate:
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Seeking filmmaker for Working Together
Brief for a Filmmaker for Creative Health Project DocumentationYou can hear this as an audio file here And as a pdf here
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White text on a light blue background with a purple horizon running across the page
Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025
Creativity and Wellbeing Week (C&WW) is back, and this year we are engaging with diverse practitioners, sector leaders, and regional organisations to spotlight the incredible impact of the creative health sector across the country!
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Seeking a Barnsley Creative Health Lead!
Salary: £36,750 pro rata, 0.6FTE (3 days per week) Length of appointment: 1 year from April 2025; with a likely extension to March 2027. Deadline: 5pm on Friday 28 February 2025
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Guest blog: The Enchanted, by Jenni Nikinmaa
As a walk-through play, The Enchanted invites us into the exploration of how movement acts as a gateway to the sadness found in loss, and so, can create space for difficult feelings.
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CHWA is commissioning a Derby/Derbyshire based artist for the CHWA 2025 Awards
Listen to a recording of this callout 
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Building a more equal alliance: what does that even mean?
We know we live in an unjust society. Systemic racism, ableism, sexism, ageism, class discrimination, transphobia, discrimination on the basis of religion… it’s all (arguably) more visible than it’s ever been.
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a man sitting at a desk writing in a diary with a pen with an open laptop in front of him
Online dementia awareness course is a hit with nursing students
House of Memories is a well-established and award-winning dementia awareness programme, created in 2012 by National Museums Liverpool. Now a new online dementia awareness course has been positively evaluated for use with Higher Education nursing students, as evidenced through a successful pilot with Liverpool John Moores University. 
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Indian woman with long brown hair looking at an older white woman with short brown hair, both seated, reading with a cup of tea against a bright green bookshelf
Photo by Marcia Chandra, courtesy of The Reading Agency
The Reading Well Programme: Reading for Health and Wellbeing
Written by Gemma Jolly, Head of Health and Wellbeing, The Reading Agency
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six people, four of whom are using wheelchairs, look directly at the camera smiling in a room in a museum
Accentuate/Screen South
Equitable employment within the heritage sector for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent museum professionals
We believe it is important to challenge misconceptions that disabled people can’t work, don’t work or aren’t able to work within the museums sector; highlighting, challenging and changing those barriers which disabled people face to employment.
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From ‘Climate’ to ‘Healthy People and Planet’: Updating our CHWA Award categories
“We have no land, we are the land. We have no sea, we are the sea.”Günther Baechler – Toda Peace Institute
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A group of people sit around a table with papers and craft items on it
Meeting up! Working Together Museum Partners at Castle Museum, York, 2024
Working (it out) Together!
The generous funding, with very few strings attached, has allowed us to co-develop projects from the very start with our communities, allowing it to diverge from our initial thoughts to something that will truly support them and allow us to embed our projects into our day-to-day programming. 
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How the budget might impact creative health
One possible response to the budget is that it doesn't match the ‘mood music’ the cultural and community sectors were hearing from government earlier in the summer (see this
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Black History Month 2024
Watch this inspiring conversation between Clancy Williams and CHWA's Kheyla Buchanan, which explores the concept of 'reclaiming' in relation to history, health, nature and creativity.
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A man facing away from the camera and into a wood. On his back are large wings made of scraps of fabric.
darts in Doncaster, photo by Jim Mulkeen. Artists: Angie Hardwick and Jim Lockey.
Is the new government interested in creative health?
We've been investigating how the new government's approach might support creative health. Below we set out a few thoughts, based partly on attending a fringe event at this year’s Labour conference with the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Lisa Nandy, hosted by the Fabian Society.
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a black woman with long braids dancing against a yellow background
Fountain
Building on Yewande 103’s current body of work around embodied advocacy, Fountain blends together dance and digital watery environments to explore tidal cycles of repair, loss, joy and intimacy.
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Disenfranchised Grief
Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah is a Ugandan-Ghanaian solo dance artist, painter, writer, musician, and interdisciplinary artist based in Stoke-on-Trent where she emigrated from Rwanda in 2022.
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BLACK INK
Writerz and Scribez is a Black-led arts company working at the intersection of art, wellbeing, and equity. View their interpretation of this year's Black History Month theme, 'Reclaiming Narratives' via the link below.
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A self-portrait illustration of Nikẹ Opal wearing a pink jumper, pink eyeliner, golden-framed glasses with blonde cascading braids smiling their iconic smile.
To Smile Again
In response to this years Black History Month theme; ‘Reclaiming Narratives', CHWA in collaboration with London Arts and Health invited artists/practitioners to interpret this theme in a way that spoke to them within the context of creative health. Nike Opal is Non-Binary, Queer Multimedia Artist, view their interpretation via the link below.
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Reclaiming Narratives
Arowah Cleaver is an award-winning musician, activist and creative health practitioner, read their blog about time spent on hospital wards during their residency.
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four people sit around a table covered with laptops, snacks and papers
@inspiredmaephotography - CHWA Board meeting, November 2022
CHWA is looking for new Board members!
Seeking new Directors for the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance CICDeadline: 11am on Monday 28th October
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Black History Month 2024: Reclaiming Narratives
The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and London Arts and Health (LAH) are pleased to be collaborating on a paid opportunity for Black History Month 2024.
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Arts in Care Homes: 24 September!
Arts in Care Homes is a programme by the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA) that underscores the well-being benefits of arts, creativity, and cultural engagement in care settings.
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Callout for Black History Month with CHWA and London Arts and Health
The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and London Arts and Health (LAH) are pleased to be collaborating on a paid opportunity for Black History Month 2024. Listen to an au
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Dance Artist Filipa with patients in a Dance for Health Session
Copyright: CUH Arts
CUH Arts Celebrates 10 years of its Dance for Health programme at Addenbrooke’s Hospital
‘Space and time is made to engage with and listen to patients in a non-clinical, creative way. Although not therapy, the sessions are often of therapeutic value, and give patients positive and meaningful experiences whilst in hospital.’ Filipa Pereira Stubbs
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Mobilising Community Assets: The story so far, and Phase 3
The UK Research and Innovation 'Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities' programme is now entering phase 3, with numerous substantial research programmes launching around the UK.
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logo for the festival - the word PAUSE in white text over a colourful painted background
Guest blog: The Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival 2024
An invitation to Arts Managers across Northern Ireland to participate added to the Festival's success and profile. No county left behind. This year's festival was a testament to the pivotal power of partnership in embracing and the arts, and challenging the stigma associated with mental health and wellbeing, fostering the importance of  community spirit, mental health awareness, and harnessing lived experience to inform government policy.
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The Impact of 'Making Change'
CHWA has spent the last few months catching up with people who attended the Making Change Conference in October last year. We were really keen to hear about what they had been working on, how they were feeling, and the impact that attending the conference may have had on them, both personally and professionally.
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A white woman wearing glasses with short black hair and a red top sitting next to a white woman with shoulder length blonde hair who is sitting next to a black woman with locs wearing a pink cardigan smiling
CHWA conference 2023; Image: Michael Aiden Photography
Creative Health Training Hub: A new central training resource on the CHWA site
Thanks to the Baring Foundation, CHWA is launching a new training hub, to make it much easier to find what’s out there and to advertise your own training.
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Call for submissions, and international bursaries: Everyday Creativity Conference, London, 26 September
The 2024 Everyday Creativity Conference is an opportunity to share understandings and ways of working with/for everyday creativity (EC).
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Pre-election Briefing on Creative Health
With a general election coming up on July 4th, we are keen to make sure that candidates are aware of Creative Health and the benefits it can bring across a range of policy areas.
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Pride Month 2024!
It's Pride Month and to celebrate, we're sharing a small selection of LGBTQ+ creative health programmes and projects around the country.
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Charities and think tanks set out pleas for next government
Civil society is calling on government to address long-term crises in health and social care in various ways:
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New policy on payments for freelancers and low- or un-waged colleagues
For over a year CHWA has been trialling payments for freelance and low/un-waged colleagues when they contribute their expertise to help develop CHWA's work. After positive feedback from members, this has now been formalised and signed off as a Policy as part of our Equality Action Plan.
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Interview with Sally Lewis, Arts Council Wales
Sally Lewis recently stepped down after 18 years at Arts Council Wales, most recently as Portfolio Manager for Arts & Health.
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Guest blog: A Radical Potential, by Clive Parkinson
Image: The Spirit of Dalton Crags Woodland, 2023. The rear side of a letter and self-portrait of an imagined future ghost, based on an 18th century engraving of the arteries in Diderot’s Encyclopaedia 1751/1772.
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Guest blog: How is training shaping the future of Creative Health?
UCL established the world’s first Masters in Creative Health in 2021. The programme, now in its third year, seeks to create a new generation of socially engaged scholars and practitioners to meet the needs of a changing health, social care and voluntary third sector, where integrated care, health inequity and the patient experience are mainstreamed into public health.
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Two older white men sitting down playing the drums and the keyboard, younger bearded male standing playing an instrument
Music composing sessions delivered by musicians/composers Thomas Sherman and Joe Harrison-Greaves for people with hearing impairments in partnership with Arts in Health and the Hearing Department at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and University of Sheffield Department for Music. This project was part of the In & Out of Hospital arts programme, funded by Sheffield Hospitals Charity and Arts Council England.
In & Out of Hospital creative intervention programme
The In & Out of Hospital arts programme was designed to see if creative processes used by different professional artists could complement the care and treatment provided by our NHS Trust. 
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three people in brightly coloured suits stand close to each other on a stage with a black background, all leaning at unusual angles
Lung
Director's blog: And so it goes on
As we said back in January with our colleagues at London Arts and Health, we are organisations devoted to health, wellbeing and equity; and we’re watching these concepts devastated e
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New Move Dance Feel Training
Dance in Cancer Care - Practitioner Training Be a part of the Dance in Cancer Care movement. 
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5 people stand smiling in front of a light display, outside at night
Paul Blakemore
West of England initiative culminates in a toolkit to support young people’s wellbeing through creativity and cultural volunteering
Arts & Health South West has released a toolkit on collaborative working between youth, artists, and cultural institutions to support programmes of creativity, wellbeing, and volunteering.
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an illustration featuring a tree and text describing different aspects of AHSW's work
Hannah Mumby
Arts and Health South West closes after 18 years
Arts and Health South West (AHSW) closed its doors on 31st March 2024.
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A young muslim woman smiling wearing a black hijab and a red top playing a brown guitar
Sonic Minds: an award-winning creative music programme delivered by Lewisham Music
Funded by Youth Music and BBC Children in Need, the Sonic Minds programme supports young people at elevated risk of experiencing a mental health issue.
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an abstract digital artwork with a dark background featuring bright prin, blues and fine points of yellow light in the centre
‘Untitled’ By Casey Francis (Mad Truth)
Learning from experience: Casey Francis (Mad Truth)
...through creativity we can transform adversity to beauty and in the process transform ourselves. We can create our own lives as if we are creating a work of art. Instilled within all of our experience are layers of meaning, understanding and connection. Art is empathy, it is communication. Art allows us to step outside of ourselves, and see something inside that we could not recognise because of our external circumstances, our pain, our fear, our doubt.
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White text on a blue background with a collage of B&W photography, red squiggly lines and dark blue stripes
Black Health and the Humanities Network: Call for Applicants
The BHH Network is a community of academics, artists, and activists working in the field of Black health and the humanities. We are delighted to open the network for a new cohort of PhD students, researchers, and practitioners in the field of Black health to join our existing community.
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A photograph of the sea with a bird flying just above it
Director's blog: Coming together in difficult times
The horror of what’s unfolding in Gaza and Israel is affecting us all, whether we are trying to work around it or are deeply engaged. Whenever there is a terrible event, it undermines normal life – when we don’t speak about it, some part of us is always managing this absence. But to speak about it is painful, and complex.
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Short surveys from the NCCH Creative Health Associates
The NCCH Creative Health Associates would like to hear your thoughts on creative health to help shape their work with Integrated Care Boards and Systems. They will use the information to better understand what work is happening and where, and what support organisations and individuals need.Here are the links to two different surveys:
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Art in hospitals
This article was first published at www.artsprofessional.co.uk, 8 February 2024.Hospital arts programmes are flourishing thanks to a national network and a groundswell of support for such initiatives, as Laura Waters explains.
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Two film submission opportunities
42nd Street and Arts & Health Hub are both seeking submissions of short films exploring mental health for film screenings in Manchester and east London respectively this May.Read about the Arts & Health Hub opportunity here (deadline 8 April)
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Black text on a multi-coloured swirly background
Creative Health State of the Sector Survey results
The UK State of the Sector Survey was conducted between February and April 2023, to help us understand more about the creative health sector in the UK. It was conducted as a collaboration between CHWA; the Wales Arts, Health & Wellbeing Network; Arts Health & Wellbeing Scotland; and Arts Care (Northern Ireland). 
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a number of people stand in a circle with their arms raised, seen in the middle-distance in a park with large trees behind them
Open for Applications: BA Creative Therapeutic Practice
City of Bristol College has been working closely with Bath Spa University to create a brand new degree programme exploring creativity and its impact on wellbeing, with a focus on participatory practice. We have our first cohort up and running and are now accepting applications for this September.
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Creative Health Quality Framework evaluation
If you have been using the Creative Health Quality Framework and wish to share your experiences and learn from others, we’re running two events on Tuesday 27 February and Thursday 7 March 2024.
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Call out: Resources for practitioner support
Are you an artist/creative health practitioner, commissioner, or partner organisation delivering creative programmes to people living with challenging conditions/ circumstances? We'd like to hear what supports you in your work - the resources you use and what is needed:
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Creative Health Review and Creative Health Toolkit
Our colleagues at the National Centre for Creative Health have launched both the Creative Health Review, and a brand-new Creative Health Toolkit. Together with the Creative Health Quality Framework this gives us a great grounding for 2024.
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Illustration of a watering can watering a flower with a face on.
The NCCH and APPG AHW Creative Health Review 2023
The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG AHW) launched the report of the Creative Health Review on 6th December 2023.
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Illustration of a watering can watering a flower with a face on.
The NCCH and APPG AHW Creative Health Review 2023
The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG AHW) launched the report of the Creative Health Review on 6th December 2023.
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Picture of a woman with black hair pointing at a colourful piece of paper on a wall in a classroom setting
Guest blog: How do I navigate the landscape of arts and health evaluation?
By Dr Katey Warran, Research Fellow in the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at University College London and Deputy Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts & Health
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A person making a colourful banner that reads 'We Need A Change'
Michael Aiden Photography
How to Grow a Forest: An Evaluation of Making Change National Conference 2023
It’s been just over month since The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance came together with over 300 colleagues, in Barnsley and online, to host the Making Change national conference. Here we reflect on the event, our findings, and our plans for the future.
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A person making a colourful banner that reads 'We Need A Change'
Michael Aiden Photography
How to Grow a Forest: An Evaluation of Making Change National Conference 2023
It’s been just over month since The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance came together with over 300 colleagues, in Barnsley and online, to host the Making Change national conference. Here we reflect on the event, our findings, and our plans for the future.
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Focus on Black History Month 2023
Black History Month 2023 is a time for progressive reflection, it presents the opportunity to experience events, discussions and more around the country that enable us to mark the historical contexts of black culture whilst celebrating it's non-monolithic evolution to the present day. 
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Black and white logo with black text
Guest blog: Black Cultural Archives
​​What do we owe future generations?​ How do we create a sustainable space for our collections and the planet?​ How to discuss this with different audiences?” Topics explored in 'The Crying Child: On Colonial Archives, Digitization and Ethics of Care in the Cultural Commons', by Temi Odumosu. The fact we still have work to do is exciting. Our collections continue to grow, and we encourage everyone to think about their history and their stories.
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pie chart from the survey describing how optimistic people feel about creative health (details are in the body text)
Highlights from the Creative Health UK State of the Sector Survey
Please refer to the full findings here 
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Statement on events in Israel and Gaza
As an organisation focused on health, wellbeing and equity we urge the UK government to call immediately for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza and to speak up unequivocally for the maintenance of international law and protection and support of civilians, as well as aid and health practitioners.
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a cartoon of two hands knitting together the areas of london
London Creative Health City: Building It Together - callout deadline 12 October 2023
CALLOUT FOR PROPOSALS FOR A ONE DAY EVENT EXPLORING LONDON AS A CREATIVE HEALTH CITY, THIS NOVEMBER. SAVE THE DATE: 27th November 2023, 10.30am – 5pm in-person at Battersea Arts Centre and online via Zoom.
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artwork featuring the words Safe and Home and two birds
Creative Recovery
Seeking new members for Barnsley's Creativity & Wellbeing group
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is recruiting new members to the Barnsley Creativity and Wellbeing Group The Creativity and Wellbeing Group is jointly led by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (BMBC) and the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
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Cover of the Creative Health Quality Framework, featuring a collage of colourful icons including a pen, an eye, a leaf, cogs and hands
Cover of the Creative Health Quality Framework; design by Jennie Ives
Creative Health Quality Framework Launched!
Ground-breaking tool launched to boost the use of arts and culture to support health The Creative Health Quality Framework, a ground-breaking new tool that clearly articulates what “good” looks like for
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Unintended Outcomes: How the Quality Framework has transformed me and my practice
Our hope was that, by developing set of Quality Principles and offering clear guidance on how to use them, The Creative Health Quality Framework would inspire the best possible experiences and outcomes for everyone involved in Creative Health work. What I hadn’t expected was just how much the process of developing the Framework would impact me and my practice! Using the eight Quality Principles as a structure for reflection, I have taken a moment to pause and consider what the process of working on this project has meant to me.
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banner featuring icons from the quality framework: signposts, a key, music, a leaf, an eye, a question mark and a pie chart
part of the Creative Health Quality Framework design, by Jennie Ives
Guest Blog: Do we need another framework? (TLDR: yes!)
CHWA Non-Exec Director Rosie Dow reflects on how our new Creative Health Quality Framework complements and adds to other frameworks and toolkits now available to the sector.
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A group of women standing in front of Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
Jenny Harper
CHWA is Recruiting Regional Champions
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) is looking for people working within culture, creativity or social justice/community improvement, who are passionate about championing creative health work in their local area as volunteers. We particularly want to widen our demographic in terms of heritage and dis
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Seeking an Evaluator for Working Together, deadline 16 October
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is seeking an evaluator for Working Together, a partnership project with GEM to support 6 heritage/museum sites to develop their work with health and wellbeing.
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CHWA and GEM: Working Together
Please see a November 2024 update on the programme here.
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CHWA and GEM: Seeking a "Working Together" Programme Lead, deadline 25 September
Job Description: Working Together Programme Lead Salary: £40,000 pro rata, 0.4FTE (2 days per week) for 22 months Application deadline: Monday 25 September, 12noon
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artwork featuring the words Safe and Home and two birds
Creative Recovery
CHWA Conference 2023: South Yorkshire Bursary Opportunity - deadline 15 September
Through generous support from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is offering 10 free spaces to attend Making Change: Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance national conference to freelance creative practitioners who live, or whose practice, is based in the South Yorkshire Region. We particularly want to encourage applications from people identifying with any of the protected characteristics as defined in the 2010 Equality Act, or who are from less affluent socioeconomic backgrounds.
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A white woman with blonde hair smiling to camera against a white and yellow background
Speaker Spotlight: The Arts are a Vital Healing Tool for Healing Trauma
National Coordinator, Fiona Moon, chats to Making Change conference contributor Kelly Amoss, about founding the charity Seaglass Collective, which aims to support adopted children access much needed arts and creativity provision.
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A group of eight people in winter clothing standing on a bridge looking to camera. They are smiling and laughing with arms around each other
64 Million Artists
Dare to be Idle - Rest as Rebellion in a Busy World
As part of this year's conference theme Making Change, our National Coordinator Fiona is talking to organisations who are rethinking their approaches to work to improve the health of people and the planet.
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Launch of Our National Health Stories
Discover and celebrate the stories of the people that make up our NHS. Marking 75 years of our National Health Service, this powerful new artwork is an unprecedented collaboration between 19 hospital trusts and a creative team led by Kwame Kwei-Armah.
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Creative Health Quality Framework Evaluation Brief
Fee: £8,000 including VAT and expenses Deadline: 5pm, Friday 28 July Project: September 2023-June 2024
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A black graphic with squiggly blue grey lines formed into contours has acid yellow text overlaid that reads Changing Currents
Changing Current, Arts Catalyst new podcast series exploring climate perspectives and possible futures
Changing Current is a new podcast series by @artscatalyst exploring climate perspectives and possible futures featuring the voices of artists, growers, activists, local community groups, heritage workers and researchers across South Yorkshire. 
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picture of a young person's hand, drawing a detailed picture of a cat
42nd Street
Opportunity for young people to help shape the government's forthcoming Cultural Education Plan
Common Vision is working with Arts Council England to conduct research into young people’s views on culture, creativity and cultural education.
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People clapping enthusiatically in an audience at an event - one clapping their hands over their head
Inspired Mae Photography https://www.inspiredmaephotography.com/
Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2023
Thanks to you, Creativity & Wellbeing Week was packed with amazing, catalysing events right across the country, and garnered huge interest on social media. Send us photos or videos of your event, and help us understand how the week is working for you...
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Help shape the government's cultural education plan
Common Vision is working with Arts Council England to research young people’s views on culture, creativity and cultural education.
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Arts & Culture programme officer for Birmingham's Public Health team
Deadline 26 April Birmingham City Council Public Health have an exciting new opportunity for a highly skilled individual to join the Public Health team as a Programme Officer – Arts and Culture. This full-time role will be based within the Communities team of the Healthy Behaviours and Communities sub-division of Public Health.
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People flying their handmade Korean kites with Equal Arts under the Angel of the North statue against a grey sky
Equal Arts. Photographer, Dani Giddins
Freelance Opportunity - Help us grow CHWA in the North East
Freelance Contract (4 days across May and June 2023) Fee: £1k Deadline: 5pm on Friday 5 May Are you based in the North East and thrive on connecting the dots? Are you linked into the arts/ heritage and community sector? Do you want to be part of growing a North East culture/health and wellbeing community that is representative of the region?
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Arts & Health Hub events, April to June 2023
Collaborations III: Artists & Social Prescribing (in person) 13th April, 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Southbank Centre The Arts and Health Hub and the Southbank Centre present their next event focusing on the theme of collaborations. This event focuses on participatory artists working with cultural and health partners within a social prescribing context.
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Curating for Change: resources and sector forum
CHWA is thrilled to be part of the The Curating for Change (CfC) Museums Strategic Disability Network – a supportive framework for museum sector organisations and those
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Venn diagram showing the intersections of 'queer, 'creativity' and 'health'
Illustrations by MJ Barker
Why queer creative health? Guest blog by Frances Williams
What would it mean to ‘queer’ creative health? Why might we need to, and, if so, how? I was given the opportunity to first delve into these questions through a PhD scholarship I completed in 2019. My literature review explored longer histories of the field of Arts in Health as part of exploring its relationship to people and place.  
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Job description: Maternity leave cover, national coordinator
Salary: £35,420, full-time (Maternity leave cover) Maternity cover: June to December 2023 (inclusive) Application deadline: 5pm on Monday 24 April
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Collaborative community research to tackle health inequalities funding opportunity
Apply for funding to create and test collaborative models for the integration of cultural, community and natural environment assets into health and care systems.
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National Creative Health Survey - deadline 6 April 2023
Please complete this survey and send it on to your networks!  
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Brief for a Designer for a Creative Health Quality Framework - deadline: 5pm Thursday 16 March
You can hear this as an audio file here and download it as a pdf here.
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Opportunity: North regional lead for the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Job Description: North Regional Lead, Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance Salary: £35,000 pro rata, 0.6FTE (3 days per week)
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Opportunity: Administrator for Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Job Description: Administrator  - Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance Salary: £25,000 pro rata, 0.6FTE (3 days per week) Application deadline: 5pm on Monday 27th February
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Young girl sits at a table making a mosaic and smiling
ACAVA_s Grenfell Memorial Community Mosaic - Walking as One workshop (c) Zute Lightfoot. Courtesy ACAVA - Lorna Gemmell
End of year Director's blog
Creative health - or arts and health, or culture, health and wellbeing - has made steady progress this year in an unstable and extremely challenging context; it may not always feel this way, but across government, particularly local government, and in funding and commissioning organisations, recognition for and commitment to creativity and culture in support of health and wellbeing is steadily
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Local government association logo
LGA publications on social prescribing
The Local Government Association has produced two significant pieces of guidance focused on the role of social prescribing - and culture and sport in particular in supporting local health priorities and improving health outcomes.
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Funding news for the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
We are acutely aware that along with some great news for socially engaged creative and cultural work, there have also been some We're delighted that Arts Council England has offered to fund us as an Investment Principles Support Organisation in the 2023-6 funding round. We’re proud to be recognised for working with the amazing collective of organisations and freelancers that drives the creative health movement. We are acutely aware that along with some great news for socially engaged creative and cultural work, there have also been some painful disappointments. We’d like to reiterate our offer of support for creative health organisations and freelancers; please get in touch with us direct if you'd like to discuss what might be most useful for you moving forward.
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logo for National Centre for Creative Health
Creative Health Review
The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG) Creative Health Review will highlight the potential for creative health to help tackle pressing issues in health and social care and more widely, including health inequalities and the additional challenges we face as we recover from Covid-19.
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Creative Lives Awards 2020 and 2021 winners diverse group inside a cathedral celebrating
Tom Wren, Creative Lives
Creative Lives Awards are open for entries!
Calling all creative groups across the UK and Ireland: The annual Creative Lives Awards are now OPEN for entries!
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A man in a black hat and light brown suit performs on a stage with his left hand raised. In the foreground another man watches wearing a black cap.
Black History Month 2022
This October, we’re highlighting a few activities led by our members and regional champions for Black History Month. You can also watch our conversation with Dr Errol Francis about his work across mental health, culture and research at the bottom of this page.
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Practising Well Reflections on Conversation events 2022 in black text on a teal/turquoise background
Reflections on the Practising Well Conversation Series by Nicola Naismith
Nicola Naismith reflects on the Practising Well Conversation Series in collaboration with CHWA and supported by the AHRC earlier this year, which provided a vehicle to explore findings from her most recent research with the wider sector.
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Tina Blaber with guitar against a wall
Tina Blaber
CHWA Stories: Unlocking Possibilities by Tina Blaber
Our existence is embedded in culture – it’s all around us – and I think the need for this, as social creatures, is an inherent part of our make-up, as human beings.
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Artists' Represent Recovery Network poster with funder logos
Artists' Represent Recovery Network: New training programme for ethnically diverse practitioners in London
The Artists’ Represent Recovery Network is a professional development programme open to 10 London-based, freelance, ethnically diverse artists working in arts & health in a participatory or community setting.
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Short-term fundraising / development manager for CHWA
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) is looking for a short-term Fundraising and Development Manager to support the organisation between December 2022 and February 2023.
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NCCH works with CHWA and LENs to respond to Government mental health and wellbeing plan
The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) has led a response to the Government’s recent consultation to inform a new 10-year mental health plan, working closely with CHWA and the LENs (lived experience network). The organisations together highlighted the vital role of creative health in preventing, managing and treating mental ill-health and recommended changes that could be made in the healthcare system to make it easier for people to feel its benefits.
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Logo for Scotland's Sining for Health network
Guest blog: Scotland’s Singing for Health Network
Research shows that singing is beneficial for health and wellbeing, and not just in a general sense. Singing can provide specific support to those with a variety of conditions (some of which are discussed on Scotland’s Singing for Health website).
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Cooper art gallery text
Cooper Art Gallery
Guest blog from CHWA's Kickstarters: The Cooper Gallery
Personal Experience (Lewis) This is a blog about the Cooper Art Gallery. My name is Lewis and I'm going to share my experience of the art gallery from an in-person perspective. The Cooper Art Gallery is a gallery that features beautiful old artwork from sculptures, seascapes, river views, and palaces to bridges. The Cooper Art Gallery features some unique paintings and masterpieces.
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Power and change: leadership, lived experience and coproduction
At a recent WhatNext? meeting the cultural thinker Suzanne Alleyne asked this question of Arts Minister Lord Parkinson: "As we know, there is a very small subset of society that holds power in the publicly funded arts sector. Research shows that human beings fundamentally don’t like change, and that often those in power do not want to share it with those who don’t have access to it. What do you think the steps are that we need to take together to change this?"
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Place Making or Making Place, from Age of Creativity
This partnership event was co-devised by colleagues at Keele University, Staffordshire University and Age UK Oxfordshire, as part of the Age of Creativity Festival 2022 and Creative Later Life 2025.
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Videos from Creativity & Wellbeing Week (May 2022)
Creativity & Wellbeing Week ran from 16-22 May 2022. You can read about hundreds of organisations' work and events on the main site, here - and watch videos from some of our headline events below. See below for recordings of the following events:
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Artist Carol McNicoll leading a workshop for The Repair Centre Portraits of Recovery 2022
Carol McNicoll leading a workshop for The Repair Centre Portraits of Recovery 2022
Towards Recoverism and a Recoverist Future!
This article is by Mark Prest, Founding Director of Portraits of Recovery, sharing insights into their most recent project, The Repair Centre For 11 years, Portraits of Recovery has been inspiring and supporting people in recovery from substance use from Greater Manches
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Creative Health Quality Framework
The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA), funded by Arts Council England, is working with arts, health and wellbeing consultant Jane Willis to develop a Quality Framework with the Creative Health sector.
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HARP logo
The art of.. Health, Arts, Research, People (‘HARP’)
Rosie Dow, Board Director of the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance and Programme Manager for ‘HARP’ at Nesta, explains what this arts and health innovation programme has been about, and what they’ve learned  
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HARP logo
The art of.. Health, Arts, Research, People (‘HARP’)
Rosie Dow, Board Director of the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance and Programme Manager for ‘HARP’ at Nesta, explains what this arts and health innovation programme has been about, and what they’ve learned  
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Feels like Home ESOL Group, Barnsley Museums- skipping at Cannon Hall
Feels like Home ESOL Group, Barnsley Museums- skipping at Cannon Hall
Barnsley Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2022
To coincide with the national event taking place between Monday 16 and Sunday 22 May, Barnsley will be hosting its first-ever Creativity and Wellbeing week led in collaboration by Barnsley Council, the Creativity, Health and Wellbeing Alliance and other key partners.
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Feels like Home ESOL Group, Barnsley Museums- skipping at Cannon Hall
Feels like Home ESOL Group, Barnsley Museums- skipping at Cannon Hall
Barnsley Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2022
To coincide with the national event taking place between Monday 16 and Sunday 22 May, Barnsley will be hosting its first-ever Creativity and Wellbeing week led in collaboration by Barnsley Council, the Creativity, Health and Wellbeing Alliance and other key partners.
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a small group of people looks at a video screen hung in front of many paintings stacked in a storage space
CHWA Gather In event at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Image by: Jenny Harper
How do community assets, creative health partnerships and social prescribing tackle health inequalities?
Exploring a new AHRC Research Programme led by Professor Helen Chatterjee The Covid-19 pandemic adversely and disproportionately impacted vulnerable members of society, and highlighted significant inequalities in the UK.
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a small group of people looks at a video screen hung in front of many paintings stacked in a storage space
CHWA Gather In event at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Image by: Jenny Harper
How do community assets, creative health partnerships and social prescribing tackle health inequalities?
Exploring a new AHRC Research Programme led by Professor Helen Chatterjee The Covid-19 pandemic adversely and disproportionately impacted vulnerable members of society, and highlighted significant inequalities in the UK.
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photo of rocks in a misty forest
Forest walk (Photo: Catriona Towriss)
Guest blog: Creating well being and art with the forest
I collect what I find in the forest, carry it to my studio for cleaning and shaping, and then assemble it into sculptural art works. I see my art as a collaboration with nature. I create in order to explore the patterns, tones and shapes of nature, to uncover nature’s visual language.
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The blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag
Ukraine
At a recent rally for Ukraine, the granddaughter of a Tartar – indigenous Crimean – woman, offered her solidarity with Ukrainians; at a small gathering in a Scottish public park, she stood next to a young Belarusian woman, and a Russian man carrying a banner for Russians against the war.
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A person colours in a rainbow flag on a board
© George Archer / Kids in Museums (KiM Takeover Day at the National Justice Museum)
Focus on LGBTQ+ History Month
Celebrations and reflections on LGBTQ+ History Month are taking place all around the country this February. We highlight an example here from each of the nine CHWA regions.
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GEM Case Studies #29, Health and Wellbeing
Engagement with museums, heritage sites and other arts and culture organisations has been linked to improved health and wellbeing outcomes for visitors. Studies commissioned by the DCMS, Heritage Alliance, Arts Council and other sector organisations have particularly highlighted benefits for children’s social development, memory function in older age, and wellbeing improvements in adults.
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A woman with her back to us, with long hair wearing a pink jacket looks at a painting of a coastline on an orange gallery wall
Visitor to the Inside Out Exhibition at Fleetwood Hospital in Fleetwood. Image credit: Claire Griffiths
Guest blog: Fleetwood: The New Creative Radical
How one of England’s oldest Creative People and Places Projects is Growing Grassroots Artists and Makers with a DIY Attitude By Alex O'Toole
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Woman creating shadow shapes on a wall with her hands
University of South Wales
MA Arts Practice (Arts, Health and Wellbeing), University of South Wales
Places are available for the well-established MA Arts Practice (Arts, Health and Wellbeing) course in the heart of Cardiff.
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Photo of two people shaking hands, with their hands covered in paint after an art workshop
Arts and Minds workshops in schools (Image courtesy of Sheila Ceccarelli)
Levelling up - how is culture, health and wellbeing connected to the new proposals?
In January 2022 the government released a Policy Paper called Levelling Up the United Kingdom. A response to the widening inequalities in the UK, the authors describe 'levelling up' as "a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government". The paper sets out to describe a route towards creating "equal opportunities".
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Photo of two people shaking hands, with their hands covered in paint after an art workshop
Arts and Minds workshops in schools (Image courtesy of Sheila Ceccarelli)
Levelling up - how is culture, health and wellbeing connected to the new proposals?
In January 2022 the government released a Policy Paper called Levelling Up the United Kingdom. A response to the widening inequalities in the UK, the authors describe 'levelling up' as "a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government". The paper sets out to describe a route towards creating "equal opportunities".
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CHWA and partners respond to NICE depression guidelines
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance has come together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing; the LENs (lived experience network), National Centre for Creative Health; WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts & Health; and University College London to submit comments on the new
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Exec Director talk for Arts4Dementia panel
This brief talk was given as part of a panel focused on music convened by Arts4Dementia in January 2022.
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Guest Blog: Bringing the museum to you
Facilitating the integration of arts and culture into healthcare settings Marcus Janusz and Eleri Watson are students of Occupational Therapy at Northumbria University. They have just completed a twelve-week, role-emerging placement with Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums and Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.
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Alan Howarth speaking to the House of Lords via zoom
Lord Howarth's speeches on amendments to the Health & Social Care Bill
“The cultural and VCSE sectors have a key role to play in reducing health inequalities”
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Hidden Lives, Hidden Gems - call for contributions
Hidden Lives, Hidden Gems is looking for contributions from creative practitioners, researchers, artists, academics and others to a workshop symposium programme, which will take place over two days in a central London location.
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image shows a group of older people in a radio studio posing with dramatic expressions. There are speakers and a mixing table, a clock showing 11.30am and some posters on the back wall.
Meet Me on The Radio poster, Entelechy Arts. Image credit: Roswitha Chesher
Entelechy Arts and QMUL report: remote arts programmes for older adults
The ‘Discoveries in Distanced Arts: The work, wonder, and wear of remote creative programmes’ report provides insights into the impacts of Covid-19 on cultural and creative sectors and shares learning on how to develop remote creative programmes.
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Birmingham City Council Cultural Development Service team up with Birmingham Centre for Art Therapies to support local practitioners
Free support for Birmingham based lead artists and projects working with vulnerable clients when delivering activities against health and wellbeing outcomes in Birming
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Astronomy: a section through the earth, showing the atmosphere. Engraving. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
Astronomy: a section through the earth, showing the atmosphere. Engraving. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
Guest blog for COP26: Alison Bowyer from Kids in Museums
As life began to return to normal in the UK in 2021, research by Bath University was a stark reminder that it is not only COVID-19 that is having a major impact on young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
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CHWA 2020 Award sculptures created by Elaine Lim Newton
Elaine Lim Newton
Seeking a co-chair for CHWA – deadline 1 November 2021
We are seeking applications from a health or social care practitioner or researcher with specific expertise in health inequalities, to support our strategic commitment to partnership and equity.
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Focus on Black History Month
This month offers a chance to experience events, discussions and more around the country to mark Black History Month. You can watch CHWA's conversation with activist and art therapist Olatunde Spence here:
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Focus on Black History Month
This month offers a chance to experience events, discussions and more around the country to mark Black History Month. You can watch CHWA's conversation with activist and art therapist Olatunde Spence here:
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CreateSpace arts for wellbeing project, Birmingham Museums Trust/Creative Health CIC/Rita Patel
CreateSpace arts for wellbeing project, Birmingham Museums Trust/Creative Health CIC/Rita Patel
Call Out: CHWA West Mids Regional Champion (Arts) and Steering Group Members
Are you based in the West Midlands region? Are you passionate about culture/health/wellbeing and ready for a new challenge?  
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Photograph of Dominique De-Light
Guest blog: Write yourself to better mental health, by Dominique De-Light
I have written for as long as I can remember. Short stories created aged ten, fictionalising life or fantasy worlds to escape to. A weekly journal scrawled in an exercise book, started aged thirteen, kept up throughout my life. A regular outpouring of emotion, record keeping and analysis.
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Hip Hop Heals logo
Hip Hop Heals Director Call-Out - deadline 8 November
Do you believe in the power of Hip Hop and MC culture to transform health and wellbeing?        &
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An embrace during a music session at The Montrose Centre
Music as Therapy International
Guest Blog: Why creative care skill-sharing is a two-way street by Alexia Quin
Creativity – artistic, musical, and beyond – has a unique power to engender health and wellbeing benefits.  This is the starting point for The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance – and it is something our charity, Music as Therapy International, has championed since ou
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SANE Creative Awards Scheme 2021
SANE have launched another round of awards for the SANE Creative Awards Scheme, which offers up to £300 to individuals with mental health conditions (and their carers) to develop their creative potential.
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Margaret Giller, Necklace of Stars. Photo copyright Lois Blackburn
Margaret Giller, Necklace of Stars. Photo copyright Lois Blackburn
An Artist in a Pandemic- a case study, by Arts Derbyshire and Phil Davenport
Arts Derbyshire Arts Derbyshire is the strategic arts organisation for the county; its 100+ member organisations include arts organisations, local authorities and public bodies with a re
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Logo for South Asian Heritage Month
South Asian Heritage Month
Today is the final day of South Asian Heritage Month (18 July to 17 August 2021). As the month closes South Asian Heritage Month on twitter has been focusing on Afghanistan.
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Logo for South Asian Heritage Month
South Asian Heritage Month
Today is the final day of South Asian Heritage Month (18 July to 17 August 2021). As the month closes South Asian Heritage Month on twitter has been focusing on Afghanistan.
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A woman and two children walk down a path in a park
Oxford Botanic Garden. Photo by Ian Wallman (2017)
In what ways can museums, gardens and libraries be good for our health?
Exploring how social prescribing within cultural spaces can support older people’s wellbeing: Interim summary report + invitation to end-of-study event on 20 September An interdisciplinary team of researchers has been funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council to carry out a study to address t
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Shape of Change- Artwork by Shanali Perera
Shape of Change- Artwork by Shanali Perera
Call Out: Directors for The Lived Experience Network
For the audio description for this call out created by Mah Rana, please click here.
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Cheryl C Edwards artwork
Cheryl C Edwards
Creating in the Teeth of Corona by Helen Griffiths and Pete Leonard
A story about the growth of a virtual community that emerged from the concept of one artist in North Wales that  reached very much further afield. In the words of artists, and group members, Helen Griffiths and Pete Leonard. 
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Theo & Bobby – members of Barnsley SEND Youth Forum and Barnsley Youth Council – standing in from of The Way Ahead.
The Way Ahead, Barnsley Civic
The Way Ahead - a disability art protest in Barnsley
Jason White, the lead for community engagement at The Civic, Barnsley, introduces The Way Ahead: a brand-new piece of public art in The Civic Barnsley’s Mandela Garden. Made up of fifteen unique road signs, the art protest piece is a collaboration between artist Caroline Cardus and four support groups for local disabled and/or neurodiverse people – ArtWorks South Yorkshire, Barnsley SEND Youth Forum, My Barnsley Too and Wednesday’s Voice, part of Cloverfleaf Advocacy.
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SICK! Festival Micro Commissions
In July 2021, SICK! Festival has a Micro-commissioning fund of £6000 for 1-3 projects by early career artists in Greater Manchester and the North West.
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So Many Beauties- Intercultural Music Project
So Many Beauties- Intercultural Music Project
So Many Beauties Collective
Intercultural Music Showcase as part of South Asian Heritage Month- Thursday 5 August, 6pm - 7.15pm  The So Many Beauties Collective weaves a rich tapestry of sounds, drawing on diverse cultural influences.
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UKRI funding available for pilot study into cultural and natural assets and health inequalities
Apply for UKRI funding to carry out a pilot study for the Mobilising Cultural and Natural Assets to Combat Health Inequalities programme The study should focus on how to scale up small, local approaches for addressing health inequalities.
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History, Health and Happiness Impact Report 2020/21
Victoria Ryves, Programme Manager for Heritage Doncaster, reports on the History, Health and Happiness Impact Report 2020/21 Download the full report here
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Guest blog: Grace Meadows on the first anniversary of m4d radio
Last week saw the 1st anniversary celebrations of m4d Radio – an award-winning internet radio stream developed as part of the Music for Dementia campaign, a national campaign calling for music to be an integral part of care for people living with dementia.
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Seeking a facilitator for conversations about the arts and mental health
Click here for an audio description of the role and application process As part of our Baring Foundation-funded work to understand more about what sustainable practice looks like in mental health and the arts, we are looking for a facilitator to manage and report on a series of meetings this summer.
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Letters to the Earth COP campaign
In the run up to the UN climate summit in November, Letters to the Earth (LTTE) is gathering peoples' messages, stories and visions for a better future. Read about how to share your own letter here. LTTE has also built new toolkits for creating your own Letters to the Earth community or education workshop.
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Man About Town participant taking a photo with his phone with Leeds backdrop
Jonathan Parker, Man About Town, Creative Frame CIC
"It’s great to listen": How Man About Town is using creativity to support men’s mental health in Leeds, West Yorkshire 
Using art forms such as music, photography, and painting Man About Town provides a space for men to share their experiences — combatting the rising number of men facing isolation as well as the suicide mortality rate — in Yorkshire and Humberside. According to one project leader, “the statistics are why the fund got put together in the first place.”
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Responding to regional health priorities through collaboration in the North East
Zoe Brown and Sophie Mitchell from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, and Michael Cunliffe from North Tyneside Art Studio discuss their work to tackle local health priorities, including supporting people's mental health through collaborative programmes to make the museums relevant and welcom
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Responding to regional health priorities through collaboration in the North East
Zoe Brown and Sophie Mitchell from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, and Michael Cunliffe from North Tyneside Art Studio discuss their work to tackle local health priorities, including supporting people's mental health through collaborative programmes to make the museums relevant and welcom
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two young carers standing and smilling in front of a colourful artwork in the background
Create
Carers' Week special
Carers' Week runs from 7-13 June 2021, and we are highlighting a very small selection of member organisations who support carers with their work.
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Screenshot of Yorkshire Dance's Vogue Masterclass on zoom with Darren Pritchard
Yorkshire Dance's Vogue Masterclass with Darren Pritchard
Music and dance for Pride Month
This Pride Month, enjoy two short films: 'Double Life', from leo&hyde's electronic musical GUY, created with More Music, Lancaster Culture Co-op and LGBTQIA+ young people ​from across Lancashire; and highlights from Darren Pritchard's Vogue Masterclass for Yorkshire Dance's Dance On.
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Advertisement for Red Earth Collective's Breakaway State event
Joyce Treasure / Red Earth Collective
Two Red Earth Collective events for June
Tuesday 15 June: A screening of a performance art video by Birmingham-based artist Joyce Treasure in response to the global pandemic and Black Lives Matter and Red Earth's Sandra Griffiths' interview with Joyce.
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cover of the 'A Social Glue' publication
A Social Glue
...this report embraces culture in all its forms - blurring the messy boundaries between the amateur and the professional; the artist who cares and the health worker who escapes the trauma of their workload through some safety-valve of self-expression and pleasure.
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Health Inequalities panel from A Culture of Care
A season of culture, health and wellbeing
As the season of culture, health and wellbeing rolls on with this month's international conference for Culture, Health & Wellbeing, you can catch up with highlights from May's APPG meeting on the Mental Health Act here, explore events and organisations involved in Creativity & Wellbeing Week, and watch the CHWA Awards 2021.
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wall graffiti image of a man in a lab coat pouring green chemicals into a glass vessel
(stock image, royalty-free)
Guest blog: Tony Woods on the SHAPER project at Kings' College London
When I was a card-carrying physiologist working at St. George’s, Tooting, I would often get into passionate conversations about the importance of science versus the arts. Most of my family, being of artistic persuasion talked about beauty, expression and culture and why it is so critical to human existence. I thought of science as the quest for truth, and art as mere fluff and window dressing. To me it was no contest.
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Birds
Birds, Junction Arts
A Reciprocal Experience: Jane Wells shares insights into Junction Arts' collaborative project with Ashgate Hospicecare
Bringing external professional artists into the specialist palliative care world has been a reciprocal experience. There has been significant mutual growth and understanding of meaning and purpose and a true connection and ability to understand how the arts are as important and meaningful to a person at every life stage.
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photos of Singing Side by Side team members
Guest blog: Dr Yoon Irons on her new book, Singing, and the Singing Side by Side research programme
Singing provides a bridge between research and practice, academic and everyday life contexts. It provides an overview of current research on the benefits of singing for both mental and physical health.
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Founding Mothers Maternal Journal
Maternal Journal
Maternal Mental Health Month
This month is an opportunity to link you to four fantastic programmes focusing on maternal mental health.
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Call for responses: proposed cut to arts in higher education
An Office for Students' survey has been published to consult on government to proposals to separate "High-cost subject funding: performing arts; creative arts; media studies; archaeology", which are not deemed "strategic priorities", and reduce the government subsidy that tops up student fees by 50%.
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New online arts festival, DISRUPT, launches 8-9 July 2021
Born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, DISRUPT will reimagine the role of the arts in our society.
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Photos and short description of Multiple Shenanigans podcast and hosts
Guest blog: Multiple Shenanigans - the podcast
Lytisha and Jeanette discuss making their podcast "about the funny side of life with MS"... How has this podcast affected your wellbeing? Lytisha:
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Logo for mythbuster
London Arts and Health launches social prescribing mythbuster and digital sandpit
London Arts and Health (LAAH) and the Mayor of London have launched a myth busting guide to help support the hundreds of grassroots organisations in London to become involved in the London recovery plan.
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Covid certification and equalities
A number of groups – including the Museums Association, WhatNext? and David Tovey from Arts and Homelessness International – have drawn attention to the risks of exacerbating inequalities through the process of covid certification to access venues.
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logo for University of Derby
Free training using films from The Birth Project
The Birth Project uses the arts to explore the impact of birth, not only on new mothers but on obstetricians, midwives, doulas and birth-partners. The team at Derby University have funding to offer free training sessions/accompanied film viewings which can be tailored for different audiences, such as:
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Crucible artwork for Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust (BSUH), commissioned as part of Connect, the 3Ts Hospital Redevelopment Public Art Programme.
Crucible artwork for Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust (BSUH), commissioned as part of Connect, the 3Ts Hospital Redevelopment Public Art Programme.
New project brings together stories and shared experience of past patients and staff of the Royal Sussex County Hospital
Brighton-based arts collective Nimbus have created a new website and forthcoming permanent artwork to story-tell the rich tapestry of histories of the past staff and patients of the Royal Sussex County
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The Lullaby Factory, Studio Weave - Photograph Jim Stephenson www.clickclickjim.com
The Lullaby Factory, Studio Weave - Photograph Jim Stephenson www.clickclickjim.com
Director's blog: Some thoughts on International Women's Day
On this International Women’s Day there is a lot to celebrate about the fact that culture, health and wellbeing is a field not just dominated by women in terms of numbers, but also more often than not led by women.
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Responses to the budget from arts and health sectors
A summary of the 2021 Budget can be found here on the government's site.
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Orchestras contribute £1.6m to health
The Association of British Orchestras, City of London Sinfonia & Orchestras Live have launched a report, Orchestras in Healthcare, which suggests that orchestras contribute more than £1.6m to the public health sector
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Examples of culture box content
Culture Box
Guest blog: Errol Francis on the Culture Box project
A new research study, Culture Box, is based at the University of Exeter, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by psychologist Professor Victoria Tischler. The study addresses two urgent challenges. Firstly, providing COVID-19 public health information for those with cognitive impairment, specifically people with dementia living in care homes. Secondly, alleviating social isolation and loneliness for those living with dementia in care homes, by providing them with creative activities that support wellbeing, especially in the context of long- term lockdowns and the associated restrictions.
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image of an empty and partly broken eggshell
Just bounce back i by Sue Flowers 2020
Sustainable practice in mental health and the arts
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance led a 6-month project in 2021-22 funded by the Baring Foundation, to understand how we might help more people and organisations survive and thrive in mental health and the arts. Our advisory group is drawn from organisations around the UK using a range of approaches.
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Glenn Gould playing the piano
Photograph of Glenn Gould. Creative Commons Licensed 1.0
Guest blog: Essential vaccines by Frances Williams
If nothing else, the pandemic had forced us to re-consider the terms of cultural production and consumption. Too often, simple everyday forms of creativity and pleasure have been cast as competitive sport. Even the most domesticated forms of creative expression - baking or sewing - have been turned by TV commissioners into tales of winners and losers.
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A woman holds a small figure she has made in response to the Beaney's collections
Janet inspired by the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge collections to make figures. Photo: Wendy Daws
Museums on Prescription: Call for Participants
A graduate research study investigating museums on prescription from the perspective of the museum practitioners involved in them. Museums on prescription is part of the rising social prescribing initiative aimed at linking patients with non-medical services and resources for the betterment of their overall health and well-being.
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New ESRC Doctoral Studentship in culture-led wellbeing - deadline 5 March
Culture-led wellbeing: investigating the changing skills of the cultural workforce  A new ESRC DTP Collaborative Studentship hosted by the University of Leicester and University of Oxford Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM)
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Screenshot of 20 people in an online Vogueing masterclass
Yorkshire Dance - Vogueing Masterclass
Dancing the Solution, by Izzy Brittain
A shift of weight, a flick of the wrist, the pressure of hot palms pressed together – touch, trust and physical closeness are the tools of our trade as community dance practitioners. We read the language of the body to help participants develop greater awareness, confidence and ease in their bodies. All of this exists in real, three-dimensional life and can never be replaced.
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logo for NCCH and strapline "Creativity for healthy lives"
National Centre for Creative Health
The National Centre for Creative Health has been formed in response to Recommendation 1 in the Creative Health
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A group of people lean on a table and look at old animal bones being laid out by a museum curator
UCL Grant Museum (c) UCL
UCL MASc in Creative Health - launch event and Lecturer post
UCL’s MASc in Creative Health will create a new generation of socially engaged scholars and practitioners to meet the needs of a changing health, social care and voluntary third sector, where personalised care, social prescribing, health inequity and the patient experience are mainstreamed into public health. This programme is the first of its kind in the world, both in terms of the qualification (Masters in Arts & Sciences) and the academic field of study (Creative Health).
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Three musicians on a split screen on zoom: Clive Hunte, Amina Hussain, Lucy Geddes
String of Hearts CIC - musicians Clive Hunte, Amina Hussain, Lucy Geddes
Guest blog: String of Hearts by Lucy Geddes and Amina Hussain
12 months ago, Lucy Geddes and Amina Hussain set up String of Hearts, a community arts organisation which connects older adults through music-making in their local area of Trafford, Greater Manchester. During Covid-19 they developed a music phone call initiative to support people without internet access, which is now being socially prescribed by GP practices and local organisations.
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'Connection I' (detail) by Norie Hatakeyama. Part of the Paintings in Hospitals collection. © the artist
'Connection I' (detail) by Norie Hatakeyama. Part of the Paintings in Hospitals collection. © the artist
Calling all creative practitioners, community health professionals, link workers and nature connectors!
CHWA is a partner in the Community COVID Research Project and we would like to learn how you are connecting with people who are vulnerable, isolated, shielding, or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Your experience will help us understand how best to reach the most marginalised members of society.
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Mental health during the pandemic
According to mental health charity Mind's analysis of NHS Digital figures, numbers for urgent and emergency referrals of people in crisis increased by 15% between March and July.  Read more.
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Design the official Christmas card for the Rugby League World Cup 2021
The Rugby League World Cup 2021 has teamed up with Community Integrated Care (a national social care charity) for a compeition – open to anyone who accesses social care – to design the official Christmas card for the tournament.
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A group of women discuss images laid out on a table
© Greg Morrison for Dulwich Picture Gallery
Embedding the arts in community health and wellbeing through new collaborations
This project aims to position the Tessa Jowell Health Centre as a leading model of good practice in the arts and health national policy arena, with the potential to influence and inform other health settings with its inclusive design approach and vibrant creative programme.
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Disability History Month: How far have we come? How far have we to go?
In our consultation for Curating for Change we have been talking to D/deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people about the barriers they have faced in getting work within museums. The lack of flexibility with working conditions alongside environmental barriers have been cited on several occasions as reasons for why they have not managed to access roles in the past. The move towards remote working is something that many disabled people and those with long term health conditions have been hoping for, and the pandemic has proven this is entirely possible.
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Image of the front door of St Margaret's House in Bethnal Green
© Diana Serban @Battlegrounds19
Reopening St Margaret's House, by Stuart Cox
I’m not often asked to write something for a blog so when Jenni Regan (London Arts in Health) asked me during a Zoom meeting to write a blog post about how St Margaret’s House has started to reopen to the public as we emerged through lockdown, I said yes. Then afterwards started to think and ponder – how do I go about this?
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An image of the writer Maxwell A. Ayamba
An image of the writer Maxwell A. Ayamba
The intersectionality of culture and nature and wellbeing of minoritized groups in the UK
...people from minoritized communities suffer disproportionately from structural and systemic racism in education, health, jobs, housing, poor quality environments, which are all triggers of mental ill-health. Therefore, the question of leisure and recreation or accessing natural spaces is the last thing on the minds of the underprivileged, especially where the landscapes do not reflect people’s cultural origins or values.
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DCMS Tackling Loneliness Network survey - closing 22 November
Feed into the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Tackling Loneliness Network's task force, exploring how life can be improved for older people during the pandemic.
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Hear and Now 2019 in Bedford, co-produced by Orchestras Live and the Philharmonia Orchestra © Beth Walsh
Hear and Now 2019 in Bedford, co-produced by Orchestras Live and the Philharmonia Orchestra © Beth Walsh
International Music for Social Impact research project - survey (deadline 30 November)
An invitation on behalf of the international Music for Social Impact research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to participate in a survey of musicians in all pa
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Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
Evaluating Remote and Online Creative Activities During the Pandemic
Changes in approaches to evaluating creative activities delivered remotely or online during COVID-19 have been prompted by increased flexibility from funders and the continuing need to find appropriate, accessible and sustainable ways to access participant experience. These are two of the findings uncovered through a recent curated online conversation, hosted by Willis Newson, Creative and Credible, Arts and Health South West and the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance, in association with Professor Norma Daykin and Dr Karen Gray.
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Soap carving swirls
Hannah Ayre, Prescribe Culture
Guest Blog: Prescribe Culture – by Ruthanne Baxter
Prescribe Culture: a heritage-based, non-clinical mental health programme by Ruthanne Baxter, Museums Service Manager, Edinburgh University  
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Crisis, Recovery, Reflection and Commemoration
A national arts programme for NHS hospital staff in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
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Nurses surround a baby in hospital, smiling
Ex Cathedra
Guest blog: Children’s choir combats isolation & aids mental health of young patients at Birmingham Children’s Hospital
In an extraordinary piece of timing, UK leading choir Ex Cathedra was working with Singing Medicine patients and Birmingham Children’s Hospital Chaplaincy Team before anyone had heard of coronavirus, to create what is thought to be the world’s first hospital-wide children and young people’s virtual patient choir, called the Lifting Spirits Choir.
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Head gardener Kate Robinson crouches in the Charterhouse garden
The Charterhouse (Head gardener Kate Robinson)
Gardens are good for us…: Guest blog by Charlotte Borger
Here at the Charterhouse, like everywhere else, we keep trying to settle into a new ‘normal’ and then everything changes again…
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“Snow Leopard” from my illustrated mind, by Kathryn Watson
“Snow Leopard”, from my illustrated mind, by Kathryn Watson
Let art borne out of lived experience be our guide to a better understanding of mental health issues: A guest blog by Kathryn Watson
I’ve never studied art; I come from a medical background and did a PhD in microbiology. My world was about numbers, statistics, looking for tried and tested patterns, and grouping things into distinct categories. Absolutely these approaches have a place, and are especially essential when needing to rapidly process large amounts of information in high risk environments. But it didn’t give me a good way to process my inner world of chaotic and conflicting thoughts and feelings. Thankfully illustration did.
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Branching Out artwork by Ruth Flanagan
Branching Out, artwork by Ruth Flanagan
Call Out for Directors! Join The Lived Experience Network (The LENs)
Do you believe in the power of creativity and culture to transform health and wellbeing? Are you passionate about and committed to amplifying the voice of lived experience and challenging inequality? Do you have the time and expertise to guide a fledgling organisation with co-production at its heart?
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Community COVID Survey: What have you been doing?
We are a group of researchers and organisations funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to understand how people have occupied themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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History Club, Doncaster Heritage. Photo: James Mulkeen
History Club, Doncaster Heritage. Photo: James Mulkeen
History, Health and Happiness in Doncaster
History, Health and Happiness’s first impact report was published this summer... the data says they can infer that “participants are experiencing new levels of connectedness and are building their relationships within their community”. Participants are also “well engaged in project activities and learning things that are new to them”.
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Call for case studies: How have culture and creativity been supporting people in health, care and other institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic?
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is working with partners across culture, health and wellbeing to build evidence of the work being done by creative and cultural practitioners and organisations around the country to support health and wellbeing during Covid-19. We are gathering this information with the following aims:
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Submission to House of Lords covid-19 committee on “Life beyond Covid”
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is a national membership organisation for everyone invested in the relationship between creativity, culture, health and wellbeing. Our vision is a healthy world powered by our creativity and imagination. We are an organisation driven by the collective power of our members.
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pillcases filled with feathers
Nature Cures, by Sue Flowers
Sue Flowers: A Creative Perspective
I truly believe that when we normalise difference we enter a much more just and equal world. We all have mental health, that’s a fact - so shouldn’t we all acknowledge this hidden truth, accept that we might have mental ill health at some point and stop being afraid of the unknown?
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A man and woman dance together
Dance to Health Birmingham - Andy Barker
Guest blog: Breaking a 20-year-old curse, by Tim Joss
With the health, social and economic tragedy of Covid-19, we must move on fast and on a much larger scale. We have many brilliant artists in this country ready and able to make a vital contribution.
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"What I've missed during lockdown" - a colourful image of a hand with words written onto each finger: "not worrying, hugging, feeling carefree"
"What I've missed during lockdown", Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust
A Different Viewpoint, by Soo Boswell, Arts in Health Coordinator, Sheffield Health & Social Care NHS Foundation Trust
I only started the role in September 2019 so was still in the process of getting to know the trust and its service users and staff when Covid 19 stopped things in their tracks. Suddenly all the plans for joint working were put on hold as sectors shut down and the idea of actual face-to-face networking seemed strange, incongruent and old fashioned.
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Dancing in Driveways- Charlotte Armitage
Dancing in Driveways, Charlotte Armitage
Culture Recovery Funds from DCMS now open
Please see links to the available support and detailed information and guidance on who can apply below:
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logo for Singing for Health Network
Singing for Health Network – Bridging Research and Practice and Supporting the Singing for Health Movement
This year will see the launch of a Singing for Health Network for practitioners, researchers and anyone interested or involved in Singing for Health and Well-being. The overarching aim of the Network is to bring Singing for Health intelligence under one roof and forge closer links between research and practice.
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Cover page for the report featuring the logo and funders logos
COVID-19 Artist Impact Report For Artists Working in Arts & Health
The Arts & Health Hub is a supportive and non-competitive network for artists interested in or working in the arts and health sector.
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Joanna Brinton, GOSH Family Arts Week
GOSH Arts
Guest blog: Hospitals and Other Habitats by Susie Hall
Hospital Habitats invites young people to re-imagine their hospital as an environment for wildlife, and comes out of Something &Son’s long term project The Manuals which explores a new culture where humans create rather destroy ecosystems through our daily actions. The project is open to all young people – please share it with your patients and partners: www.gosh.nhs.uk/wards-and-departments/departments/gosh-arts/resources/how-can-hospitals-become-more-sustainable
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John Humm, Being-Opposite-Illness. The work, using self-portraiture and digital techniques, explores how focusing on the bodily experiences of others may estrange doctors from their own bodies. © John Humm
John Humm, Being-Opposite-Illness. © John Humm
Guest blog: Jennifer Wallis on curating an online exhibition at Imperial College London
Each year, students on the BSc Medical Sciences with Humanities, Philosophy and Law at Imperial College London produce a project on a topic of their choice. As one of the tutors on the course, it’s always a treat for me to see the breadth and originality of these topics. ... This year, of course, was rather different. ...
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A photograph of a performer singing and holding a guitar at Tramlines 2019; Dan Bale, Open House Pictures
Tramlines 2019; Dan Bale, Open House Pictures
Guest Blog: Tickets for Good by Steve Rimmer
Steve Rimmer of SME of the Week and DigitalHealth.London Launchpad company, The Ticket Bank, explains how the company is giving free event tickets to people who normally wouldn’t be able to access them and talks about the company’s transition into NHS social prescribing and social care...
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Artwork by Lorna Collins
Artwork by Lorna Collins
Creative Well: A self-care programme for culture, health and wellbeing practitioners based in Yorkshire and Humber
During the Covid 19 emergency many professionals in the culture and health field have pulled out all the stops to support the communities they are close to.  Others have lost some or even all of their work or have been disconnected through the furlough scheme.  And now, the future is at best uncertain. 
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Arts, Creativity and Health: Call for Papers - deadline 30 September 2020
Arts, Creativity and Health: A Special Issue for the Journal ‘Public Health’
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a woman discusses a picture at the Crocker Museum with a group of seated women
Crocker Museum, Sacramento, California
Can virtual museum experiences help reduce social isolation and chronic pain?
Seeking participants for new online study to find out.
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Chris Fremantle: Improvising as a method in the time of Covid-19
The way artists respond to crises, the DIY reinvention of projects and activities, is often celebrated, but sometimes it looks like artists thrive in difficult conditions. Rather it is important to understand that the arts have particular understandings of improvisation. The practice of artists can sometimes be overlooked (seen as a ‘black box’), with the outcomes being the focus of evaluation.
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Sewing through the pandemic sample
Sewing through the pandemic, Changing Lives
Guest Blog: The Power of Crafts and Overcoming Trauma by Laura McIntyre and Dr Angelika Strohmayer
At Changing Lives, we support women who face the most disadvantage in our communities. We support women who are repeatedly abused sexually, physically and emotionally and then often described by other people and services as the most ‘complex’, ‘challenging’ or ‘difficult’ women to work with.
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Dancing in Driveways- Charlotte Armitage
Dancing in Driveways, Charlotte Armitage
Dancing in Driveways
A participant of Dancing in Driveways in Sheffield describes how a dance artist's gesture to help her street has transformed community spirit and health.
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Rising mental health issues in young people
The Royal Society for Public Health and Beatfreaks have both pointed to a rise in mental health concerns amongst young people during covid, based on surveys of 5,000 adults and 1,500 young people respectively. Beetfreaks also learnt that 1 in 5 young people are using creativity to support their mental health.
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Call for chapter proposals for ‘Art Psychotherapy: Innovative practice and new perspectives’
‘Art Psychotherapy: Innovative practice and new perspectives’ (working title) aims to capture the range of current activity in the vanguard of Art Psychotherapy practice and research. It will be co-edited by Helen J
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Ongoing results from culture, health and wellbeing survey
In April and May 2020, 220 culture, health and wellbeing organisations and practitioners responded to a survey about their work, coordinated by:
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Join the What Next? steering group
by Lizzie Crump, What Next? National Strategic Lead
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logo for Dawn Chorus
“Making With” in Lockdown, by Dominic Campbell (Creative Aging International)
Creative Aging International (CAI) was started with the ideas of “making with” and “making for” at its core.
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‘Dads and Sons’ performing at ZoieLogic Dance Theatre’s Headfunk 2019 Photo credit: Matt Pear
‘Dads and Sons’ performing at ZoieLogic Dance Theatre’s Headfunk 2019 Photo credit: Matt Pear
Care & kindness: A conversation for Creativity & Wellbeing Week
A conversation between Victoria Hume (Director, CHWA) and Liz Ellis (Policy Project Manager, National Lottery Heritage Fund) Victoria: This year in a beautiful piece of synergy, Creativity and Wellbeing Week, theme Positive Futures, runs alongside Mental Health Awareness Week, theme Kindness.
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"What I've missed during lockdown" - a colourful image of a hand with words written onto each finger: "not worrying, hugging, feeling carefree"
"What I've missed during lockdown", Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust
Evidence we're gathering
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is gathering evidence of the sector's response to covid. See this page for more information.  
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"What I've missed during lockdown" - a colourful image of a hand with words written onto each finger: "not worrying, hugging, feeling carefree"
"What I've missed during lockdown", Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust
Evidence we're gathering
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance is gathering evidence of the sector's response to covid. See this page for more information.  
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Manchester Museums- Spoons
Manchester Museums
How can your museum support children and families' wellbeing? : A new resource from Kids in Museums
Kids in Museums is a charity funded by Arts Council England as a Sector Support Organisation for the museum sector.
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Our Day Out, Creative Arts East- participants dancing
Our Day Out, Creative Arts East
Re-imagining Our Day Out: Creative Arts East's response to COVID-19
In 2017, CAE received Spirit of 2012 funding to deliver Our Day Out, a unique dementia-friendly creative arts initiative for rurally-isolated older people. The initial three-year programme (2017-19) provided opportunities for people to engage creatively through fortnightly dementia-friendly, inclusive and interactive music and movement workshops in rural communities across Breckland and North Norfolk.
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Two people dancing in a care home
Live Music Now: A Choir in Every Care Home
Live Music Now responds to covid with Live Music Now at Home
At Live Music Now, our work at hundreds of care homes, hospitals and special schools stopped immediately because of the necessary and vital separation.
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Logo for Creativity & Wellbeing Week
Director's blog: a few things to look out for during Creativity & Wellbeing Week
Creativity & Wellbeing Week (18-24 May 2020) is giving us a snapshot of amazing work happening across the country. Working to our festival theme of Positive Futures, some of our contributors have organised digital events, and many others have told us about their work and organisations.
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Embroidery by Geraldine Montgomerie - featuring the words "we can't go back to where we were"
Geraldine Montgomerie
Locked down in Leeds: Life in an arts and health network during a public health crisis
by Geraldine Montgomerie, Project Support Officer | Leeds Arts, Health and Wellbeing Network  
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Culture, Health & Wellbeing Survey - deadline 9am, Monday 18 May
Results from the survey will be added to this page as we analyse them. --------------
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A nurse wearing personal protective equipment
Performing Medicine responds to covid with new resources
Performing Medicine is a charitable organisation delivering creative training programmes for healthcare professionals and students. In the last few days Performing Medicine has published its Circle of Care – "a relational framework for care" – and new guidance for NHS staff wearing PPE, based on advice from actors used to working in heavy costume.
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photograph of a sign in a woodland. The sign says "Find the smallest movement". (Signs of Life by Rachel Howfield Massey. Photo by Pete Massey)
Signs of Life by Rachel Howfield Massey. Photo credit: Pete Massey
Tolerance of Uncertainty
Health inequalities due to social determinants have all too often been neglected by policy makers and now inevitably the most vulnerable are the worst hit by social isolation and its consequences. No-one is claiming that connection to nature can compensate for this serious, structural inequality, but it may help ameliorate some symptoms of anxiety, loneliness and stress.
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High Peak Community Arts’ Project eARTh; participants working with artist Caro Inglis
High Peak Community Arts’ Project eARTh; participants working with artist Caro Inglis
Artists and cultural organisations respond around the world
Suddenly, it seems that all art is about health. Cultural organisations and creative practitioners everywhere in the world have been responding to covid-19 with the huge variety of perspectives that you might expect. Some responses are critical, some are there to promote health guidance, some take a longer view of how the virus reveals about humanity...
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APPG for Creative Diversity call for evidence of what works
The APPG – co-chaired by Baroness Deborah Bull and Chi Onwurah MP – is working with King’s College London, University of Edinburgh and the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (led by Nesta) on a year-long project looking at ‘what works’.
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Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance priorities (covid-19)
On 26 March we published a brief snapshot report on the culture, health and wellbeing sector and its immediate concerns for the short and longer term.
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Close up of Mum's hand- embroidering
Mah Rana
Mah Rana: Well-making Spaces
' I enjoy creating a well-making space in my mother’s home where both my mother and I can breathe, de-stress, and attend to self-care through acts of creativity.' A reflective blog from artist/researcher and carer Mah Rana exploring the power of creating well-making spaces in unsettling times.
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picture of a young person's hand, drawing a detailed picture of a cat
42nd Street
“The most vulnerable people get left behind when you’re locked down”: How the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is bringing people together through creativity
Conversation between Hayley Youell and Julie McCarthy, Great Place Manager for Greater Manchester Combined Authority, 16 April 2020  
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a cartoon of facilities manager Jackie Marriot as the superhero 'domestic goddess'
Matt Roberts for Air Arts
Guest blog: Laura Waters introduces Air Arts' Superheroes project
All of our staff are working really hard at the moment and need to feel our immense gratitude for what they do. So many people are going above and beyond and we wanted to celebrate those people who were inspiring others and being such a positive force so we decided to turn them into super heroes.
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Scroll containing a perpetual calendar with illuminated sections. Ruzname-i dairevi - astronomical tables for both the Arebi (Islamic) and Rumi (Julian) calendars providing chronological accounts of seasonal change, entry of the sun into signs of the zodiac, times of summer and sunset.
MS Ottoman Turkish 3. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Gilly Angell: learning from experience
…if you’ve self-isolated over years as I’ve done, you do slow down to a very, very different pace.The following is an interview with Gilly Angell, a founding member of the LENS group, from 31 March 2020
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Equal Arts Carers’ Cultural Adventures’ Group flying their handmade Korean flags Photographer Dani Giddins
Equal Arts Carers’ Cultural Adventures’ Group flying their handmade Korean flags. Photographer Dani Giddins
Taking a step back: reflections on covid-19
All of us are still thinking through the implications of this immense international crisis. In the spirit of offering up questions and sharing what is currently influencing our thinking, we're sharing here a few blogs and articles, and works of art, from people who have been taking a step back and reflecting on the experience and implications of covid-19.
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Recruiting for new Covid-19 social study
UCL Behavioural Science & Health has launched a study into the psychological and social effects of Covid-19 in the UK.
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Marmot 10 Years On - What now?
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
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Invitation to take part in a research study: Alison O'Connor
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.
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Invitation to take part in a research study: Alison O'Connor
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.
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Participants at the Winter School, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Participants at the Winter School, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (c) Bart de Nil
International: Bart de Nil (FARO) on the Winter School 2020 in Newcastle
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.
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Director's blog: A new ACE strategy – and a new era for culture, health and wellbeing?
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".
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Hear and Now 2019 in Bedford, co-produced by Orchestras Live and the Philharmonia Orchestra © Beth Walsh
Alex Marshall introduces Orchestras Live's "From Bingo to Bartok" report
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.
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"D-iagnosis", an image of two faces representing anguish after a dementia diagnosis, and the potential for engaging with the arts to create a more positive state of mind
"D-iagnosis" A guest blog by Veronica Franklin Gould (Arts 4 Dementia)
“D-IAGNOSIS! Arts to Preserve Wellbeing” has been commissioned from artist Jane Frere by Arts 4 Dementia.
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Bursaries for A Culture of Care
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.
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Art walk with Creative Recovery
Photo by Charlotte Armitage for Creative Recovery
CHWA joins Accelerator programme
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
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Creative and Credible: An Introduction to Arts and Health Evaluation
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.
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a young man and an older woman laughing together
Live Music Now: LIBOR concerts 2017-18
What do evaluations of arts programmes in residential care tell us about embedding arts in care homes?
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.
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International survey of the arts in palliative care - deadline 20 December
The University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine is working with Ulster University to map the range of arts and cultural practices with patients in palliative care internationally.
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3rd sector responses to manifestos
Please find responses linked below from: The Museums Association on all the parties' manifestos
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A picture of a Parkinson's dance class, led by Pavillion Dance South West
Parkinson's dance class, Pavillion Dance South West
Two new creative ageing publications from the Baring Foundation
The Foundation has published two significant new resources for creative ageing: Around the World in 80 Creative Ageing Projects and
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Call for culture case studies relating to early years and new mothers
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.
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Lucy Suggate's swarm sculptures (sculptures made of people) for Yorkshire Dance, photo by Andy Wood
Yorkshire Dance: Lucy Suggate's Swarm Sculptures at Juncture 2016 ©AndyWood
An introduction to the new WHO evidence report on arts and health - by Daisy Fancourt
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.
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Cover of the WHO synthesis report
New WHO review of evidence published
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.
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Call for evaluations: Repository for Arts and Health Resources (deadline 15 Nov)
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.
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Illustration of a dicsussion about climate change. Key ideas include degrowth and carbon literacy.
Tom Bailey (Arts & Minds Leeds)
Climate and Culture at the Leeds Arts, Health & Wellbeing Network
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
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A trombonist plays for two schoolgirls
Music & Health: a short review of research and practice
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
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Hold Exhibition at FACT Liverpool, by Invisible Flock, images Ed Waring
Hold Exhibition at FACT Liverpool, by Invisible Flock, images Ed Waring
Technology and human proximity: a guest blog by Invisible Flock
"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."
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Kyunghee Kwon (program coordinator of the educational community development team at the South Korean Arts and Culture Education Service) with Frances Chiverton and Mitch Robertson at the Beaney
Beaney House of Art & Knowledge
South Korean Arts and Culture Education Service visits the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge
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.
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Astronomy: a section through the earth, showing the atmosphere. Engraving. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
Astronomy: a section through the earth, showing the atmosphere. Engraving. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
#CHWAdeclares Twitter Chat update
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).
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Graphic illustration of some of the outcomes from the Arts Council's workshops by Zuhura Plummer
Arts Council England / Zuhura Plummer
Response to final draft of ACE strategy
The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance's official response to the final draft of Arts Council England's strategy is attached here.
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Power and Privilege report from Museums Association
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.
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Kima: Noise by Analema Group @ Maxilla Space, 2019
KIMA: Noise by Analema Group, 2019
'KIMA: Noise': An interactive installation exploring the effects of noise on wellbeing
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.
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Millions of people in the UK can have significant difficulty in accessing museums and other cultural venues
Morgan Salisbury, Meltdown Tracker
Sensory Accessibility: How it affects health and wellbeing
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.
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Brightly coloured sculpture - Land Sea Light Koan by Liliane Lijn
Land Sea Light Koan by Liliane Lijn
Healing Arts on the Isle of Wight: Guy Eades on 3 decades of work on the Isle of Wight
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.
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New Resource from Kids in Museums & call for museums' ideas
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.
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Photo of two people shaking hands, with their hands covered in paint after an art workshop
Arts and Minds workshops in schools (Image courtesy of Sheila Ceccarelli)
New briefing for STP and ICS planners
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.
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Age UK Leicestershire & Rutland features Age of Creativity and Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance
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)
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Rhiannon Armstrong
Image by Ben Gregory
Art and activism project promoting calm in online public space launches on National Relaxation Day
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.
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New guide for working in criminal justice
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.
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Place-based health inequalities - a new toolkit from Public Health England
The Health Foundation has published an assessment of the Prevention Green Paper by David Finch.
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Update on APPG for Arts, Health & Wellbeing, July 2019
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).
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Photo of two people shaking hands, with their hands covered in paint after an art workshop
Arts and Minds workshops in schools (Image courtesy of Sheila Ceccarelli)
New collaboration for mental wellbeing in children and young people
"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:
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photograph by Trish Thompson of the audience laughing at a Creative Arts East touring event during Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2019
Audience at Creative Arts East touring event. Photo: Trish Thompson
Norfolk Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2019
‘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.
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New guidance for STP/ICS planning
The APPG for Arts, Health & Wellbeing and Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance have produced new guidance for for STP and ICS Planning, available here.
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cover of the new draft strategy for Arts Council England
ACE publishes new draft strategy - consultation opens 1 July
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)
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Climate protests on Waterloo Bridge, April 2019
Climate protests on Waterloo Bridge, April 2019
Climate Change: Our Emergency Declaration & additional resources
We invite members' comments on our draft declaration and resources. Read more here
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LMN Live Music In Care project session led by Maz O‘Conner at MHA Bradbury Grange, Whitstable; Photo Credit Ivan Gonzalez
Live Music in Care: Regular music making enhances the working and living environment for care home residents and staff
by Douglas Noble, Strategic Director for Wellbeing, Live Music Now 
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Elaine Bedell, Chief Executive of the South Bank Centre, introduces the Creative Health conference
Elaine Bedell, Chief Executive of the South Bank Centre, introduces the Creative Health conference
Thank you for Creativity & Wellbeing Week!
Over 500 events later and Creativity & Wellbeing Week is officially a national festival...
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Culture, Health & Wellbeing International Conference logo
Culture, Health and Wellbeing International Conference: 21-23 June 2021
The Culture, Health and Wellbeing international conference (CHW21) is on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd June 2021. During the global crisis, the arts and creativity have helped us navigate uncertainty and been agents of hope. The conference will provide a space for exploring our individual and collective experiences and articulating a vision for the future. Our conference themes are Inequality, Power and Sustainability.
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A photograph of two people as part of a Singing in Care Homes project by Live Music Now and Creative Inspiration Shropshire Community Interest Company
Singing in Care Homes; Live Music Now and Creative Inspiration Shropshire Community Interest Company
Guest blog: Rebecca Sandiford on music and wellbeing for BBC Music Day (26 September 2019)
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.
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Snow Storm Steam Boat in Harbour
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Look at Paintings: a free-to-use website that combines Mindful meditation with Art Appreciation
'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.
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Creative Industries Federation logo
Creative Industries Federation logo
Public Investment, Public Gain report
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.  
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Close up Photo of a person drawing on a table as part of Creative Health CIC’s Still Lively Programme (Celebrating Age, ACE/Baring Foundation)
Creative Health CIC’s Still Lively Programme (Celebrating Age, ACE/Baring Foundation), image by Ming De Nasty
National Writing Day and creative writing survey
Wednesday 26 June is National Writing Day, led by First Story - a national literacy charity, working with 55 partner organisations. #nationalwritingday
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A woman and young girl look at a display in the Life Zone Gallery at Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds
The Life Zone Gallery at Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds
Museums and wellbeing - an untapped resource
The Art Fund's new Calm and Collected report has set out the ways in which museums could - and already do - impact our wellbeing.
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New high street heritage fund
A new £62 million fund has been announced by Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright. The fund will support heritage in high streets. The funding includes:
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Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
10th Hippocrates International Poetry and Medicine Conference and Awards
Friday 17 May, Newcastle Centre for Life
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Call for papers: Creative Health through the Age Span
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.
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Launch of NZ's Te Ora Auaha: Creative Wellbeing Alliance
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.
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Mental health in the cultural sector
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
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Breathe Arts Health Research, Melodies for Mums 2018 - photo by Leigha Fearon
Breathe Arts Health Research, Melodies for Mums 2018 - photo by Leigha Fearon
Summary report from annual survey
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.
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Responses to ACE strategic framework published
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.
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Logo for the Framing the Future event
Framing the Future, Paintings in Hospitals
Framing the Future debate chaired by Ed Vaizey
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.
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Dancing from a hospital bed
Susie Tate projects, photo by Carrie Calvert
New network for arts, heritage and design in hospitals
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.
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A drawing by Fabric Lenny from the Cultures of Health and Wellbeing conference
Fabric Lenny (made for the Cultures of Health and Wellbeing conference 21-22 March)2019
First Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance annual survey
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.
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Tin Arts performing at Cultures of Health & Wellbeing national conference
Tin Arts performing at Cultures of Health & Wellbeing (21-22 March 2019, Great North Museum: Hancock)
Cultures of Health & Wellbeing
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!
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A cartoon by David Shrigley with a person drinking culture
David Shrigley
Update on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance – January 2019
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.
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Tin Arts performing at Cultures of Health & Wellbeing national conference
Tin Arts performing at Cultures of Health & Wellbeing (21-22 March 2019, Great North Museum: Hancock)
Alliance…
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.
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Errol Francis speaks about the meanings of the word 'culture'
Errol Francis delivering his keynote at Cultures of Health and Wellbeing
‘Cultures of Health and Wellbeing’ – Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums – 21-22 March 2019
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.
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Shrigley bird singing
David Shrigley, Sing Your Song
Creativity & Wellbeing Week 10-16 June 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.
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Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
Messages left on the grass wall in 'Nature Calls' - the finale exhibition of Paintings in Hospitals 'Art in Large Doses' project - Photo by Glenn Michael Harper
Developing a statement of values
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:
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Lucy Suggate's swarm sculptures (sculptures made of people) for Yorkshire Dance, photo by Andy Wood
Yorkshire Dance: Lucy Suggate's Swarm Sculptures at Juncture 2016 ©AndyWood
A wave of change?
Matt Hancock’s speech on 6 November – ‘The power of the arts and social activities to improve the nation’s health’ – is enormously significant.
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A brightly coloured Sand Mandala
Victoria Hume
Sustainability and time
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.
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