Public health

London Arts and Health 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. The guide aims to challenge many of the myths surrounding social prescribing, tackling areas such as funding, the role of link workers and the importance of strong evidence-based research and evaluation.

The MASc in Creative Health 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). The course aims 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 personalised care, social prescribing, health inequity and the patient experience are mainstreamed into public health.

The Mayor of London’s ‘Make London’ initiative wants to support creative, locally-led proposals which bring people together, improve public spaces and support community hubs and high streets. This is an opportunity for you to pitch new ideas – big or small – to fund community-led projects to help your local area recover from the Covid-19 crisis.

Find out more and explore helpful resources and past projects. 

64 Million Artists are running this series of three webinars exploring the facilitation of online and in-person groups, focusing on co-creative activities and democratic processes. The sessions are relevant for those working in creative, organisational, cultural or community settings, and will explore the issues of group online facilitation during Covid-19 and beyond through a blend of taught material, group exercises and discussion.

Rachel Howfield Massey (Arts and Health Derbyshire) and Laura Phillips (Derby Museums) are hosting the second series of East Midlands CHWA Network Events, via Zoom. This is an opportunity to meet other culture and health practitioners from the region, find out how everyone is doing and think about what is wanted from a regional network. The discussions will be centred around the question: Have we found ways to create intimacy at a distance, particularly in relation to digital poverty?

Public Health, an international, multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal, has issued a call for papers for a special issue centred around arts creativity and health. Submissions covering original research and reviews are welcomed from across the spectrum of arts and culture to include: performing arts, visual and creative arts, museums, libraries, archives and other types of heritage, such as archaeology and natural heritage, where creative tasks and activities have been invoked to support health and wellbeing.

The UK government has announced a £1.57bn rescue package for Britain’s arts, culture and heritage industries, to aid recovery from the impact of COVID-19.

Emergency grants and loans will be made available to thousands of organisations across a range of sectors including the performing arts and theatres, heritage, historic palaces, museums, galleries, live music and independent cinema will be able to access.

The package includes:

Jessica Kingsley Publishers is seeking 2,000-word chapter proposals for Art Psychotherapy: Innovative practice and new perspectives (working title). The book will capture the range of current activity in the vanguard of Art Psychotherapy practice and research. It will be co-edited by Helen Jury and Ali Coles, editors of Art Therapy in Museums and Galleries: Reframing Practice.

Dance to Health, a community dance programme for older people, has published its phase one evaluation report on the programme’s effectiveness on addressing prevention of falls. The report, produced by Sheffield Hallam University Sports Industry Research Centre, found there was a 58% reduction in the number of falls experienced by participants in the previous 12 months.

The report also found positive improvements in participants' physical and mental wellbeing, including:

A study aimed at understanding the impact of Covid-19 on adult behaviours which contribute most to avoidable deaths in the UK has been launched by the UCL Department of Behavioural Science & Health and the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change. The survey, produced in collaboration with Action on Smoking and Health, Public Health England and Cancer Research UK, examines how the coronavirus pandemic has affected adult tobacco use, nicotine use (vaping), exercise, diet and alcohol use.