Creative health resources

Alice Thwaite is the Creative Health Associate for the North East, North Cumbria and Yorkshire, and is hosted by the NENC Integrated Care Board. The programme was set up by the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) to further embed creative health within health and care systems. It aims to share knowledge and research between sectors to improve understanding of the potential benefits of creativity on the health and wellbeing of people and communities. Read Alice's blog for more information about her role. Contact: alice@ncch.org.uk.

This CHWA portal contains inspirational manifestos, helpful toolkits, and guides to what evidence is already out there about creative or cultural practice that relates to health and wellbeing, and how to evidence your own work.

The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing's Creative Health Review highlights the potential for creative health to help tackle pressing issues in health and social care and more widely. It features case studies from across our region, including: South Tees Arts Project (STAR); Springbank Pavilion in Leazes Park working with the RVI Hospital Newcastle; Heart of Blyth cultural placemaking project; GEM Arts 'Feel Good Women’s Group' in Gateshead; and a project re-designing GP services and working with the VCSE sector and community assets in Bensham.

The National Centre for Creative Health's Toolkit is designed to support Integrated Care Systems to embed creative health. It aims to help health and social care systems embed the benefits of creativity, from Integrated Care System (ICS) planning to delivery by grass roots organisations. It encourages commissioners, link workers and the Voluntary Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector to work collaboratively and deliver better health outcomes for communities and individuals.

Creative Health is an approach to address health and wellbeing through engagement in creative activities such as dance, drama, visual art, film making, music or puppetry to name a few. There are many benefits of the approach for children and young people in the North East and North Cumbria. One of the Child Health and Wellbeing Network's key cross-cutting themes is art and creativity.

The Creative Health Quality Framework is a tool that articulates what 'good' looks like for creative and cultural initiatives that aim to support people’s health and wellbeing. Funded by Arts Council England and developed by Creative Health Consultant Jane Willis, in collaboration with creative practitioners, participants, health commissioners, and researchers, the tool is designed to help anyone involved in developing and delivering creative approaches to supporting health and wellbeing. The framework consists of a set of downloadable PDF resources based around eight Creative Health Quality Principles.

The UK State of the Sector Survey was conducted between February and April 2023, to help understand more about the creative health sector in the UK. It was conducted as a collaboration between Culture, Health and Wellbeing alliance (CHWA); the Wales Arts, Health & Wellbeing Network; Arts Health & Wellbeing Scotland; and Arts Care (Northern Ireland).

The National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) NASP outlines what prescribing arts and culture involves and does it really work. They share case studies about Arts and Wellbeing, information, resources, and evidence. You can also find out how to get involved in Arts and Culture Social Prescribing if you are a local charity, arts organisation, or arts professional.

Creative Health & Wellbeing is a plan for how Arts Council England is going to work within health and social care, and how they will promote collaboration between organisations and practitioners in the creative and health sectors. It includes information about 'Let’s Create', Arts Council England’s 2020–30 strategy.

Hosted by Laura Bailey, Creative Health Podcast is a national platform for discussion about the benefits of creativity to people’s health and wellbeing. Thoughtful conversations with professionals and those with lived experience reveal what ‘creative health’ means, how it helps and how we can collectively enable more people to benefit from creativity.

In this UCL Population Health Sciences webinar Professor Daisy Fancourt, Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health, explores how the arts can support in the treatment of mental illness and help to reduce the incidence and prevalence of mental health conditions. She looks at how schemes such as social prescribing could help to bring arts and cultural engagement to populations who stand to benefit the most.

This resource, produced by the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at University College London, provides a comprehensive mapping of what arts and health evaluation frameworks and toolkits exist, as well as general tips and advice. It is designed to support anyone interested in arts and health to navigate the landscape of evaluation.