Arts & Health: Visions of Reality

The next few years will be challenging; changing priorities combined with funding cuts will mean we will need to be clearer about the role the arts plays in furthering health and wellbeing. Arts and Health: Visions of Reality is an event which will bring some of the most experienced workers in the country together to share their visions of how arts and work will be developed during the next decade and to answer questions to help you prepare the case for your Arts and Health work.

You can read full details about the event here

Visions of Reality will be held on Thursday 29th April 2010, from 2.00pm - 4.00pm at Staffordshire University, Stoke- on-Trent. The event is free and open to anyone involved in this area of work. praXis members will receive priority booking but hurry - places are limited!

To book your place please contact kate@creativityteam.co.uk

'What is Happiness?'
Case Studies

During Summer of 2009 Creative Health commissioned community arts organisation Multistory to work with seven diverse community groups in each of the four Black Country areas, to explore what happiness means to different people. These 'stories' were then transferred onto pre-fabricated cardboard play houses using a variety of visual artforms. The houses were brought together to create an estate of 'Happiness Houses', which were exhibited at The Public in West Bromwich during October and November 2009. The houses are also to be toured to a number of other venues in the Black Country during 2010.

At the start of the project the funders expressed a desire that the purpose of evaluating What is Happiness? should be to: "Explore how the project can access and involve communities in the Black Country." Four outcomes or indicators of success were identified, together with ways of gathering this evidence. Evaluation took the form of a collection of case studies, which contain full details of the project, together with the outcomes met. These are now available on the praXis website and you can read them here.

Staffordshire Arts & Health Development

Staffordshire County Council Arts & Museums Service (SAMS) wish to investigate the links between arts provision in the County and health and wellbeing outcomes. They are interested in bringing a number of arts, health and community stakeholders together to explore the potential for joint commissioning. SAMS also want to raise the profile of the arts and health work currently taking place in Staffordshire. The Creative Remedies arts and health website and the communities who use it are anticipated to play an important part in this process.

Creative Health, in partnership with the Arts and Health: Artist Professional Development Programme (APDP) has been appointed to develop two pieces of work:

• A Joint Commissioning framework for Arts and Health across Staffordshire

• Generating discussion and debate around Arts & Health in Staffordshire, to encourage information sharing and increase the sense of an Arts & Health community via the Creative Remedies website

These commissions directly link to the Artist Professional Development Programme at Staffordshire University which begins this month. We are very pleased to announce that Laura Hickman has been appointed to support Creative Health in this work, consulting with Staffordshire artists and stimulating discussion around the new Creative Remedies website. The work is due to be completed by June 2010.

Creative Remedies

Don't forget to visit Creative Remedies, partner to the praXis network:

 
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