Resources

This weekend sees the annual disability arts Liberty Festival taking place in Trafalgar Square. CoolTan Arts’ poets will perform in the Comedy & Cabaret Zone and the Red Jesus tent, and CoolTan Arts will have a stall with more information about the charity and books for sale.

A guide and connected website for people in the creative sector who might be interested in collaborating and co-operating with others has been produced by Co-operatives UK at www.creatives.uk.coop. Creative Co-operatives is for anyone working in the creative industries who is interested in collaborating and co operating with other people.

This document is an introduction to the idea of evaluation for arts in health projects, designed to demistify the process and point you in the right directions to find out more. It should only start you thinking about how evaluation can work with your project, not tell you what to do.

Arts Pulse, the 2007-2008 Arts in Health project run by Rotherham Council has produced an Evaluation toolkit. The toolkit is designed to help community groups and workers to evaluate projects designed to improve wellbeing and health. To download the template, visit www.artspulse.org.uk

Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic is a new book by Mike White. Based on the latest international research, the book considers how and why arts in community health has come about, the characteristics of its practice and the challenges it poses for evaluation. It encompasses work in primary care, community health and public health. For more information, w: www.radcliffe-oxford.com

Mencap has launched a new learning disability arts website www.artspider.org.uk designed to promote activity in the field.

Live music charity, Music in Hospitals, has launched a new website including key sections for supporters, healthcare staff and musicians. A new film about the organisation’s work can be viewed online at the new site, www.music-in-hospitals.org.uk

Deborah Kirklin and Ruth Richardson, editors of Medical Humanities – a Practical Introduction (2001), have followed this invaluable guide with The Healing Environment – Without and Within, published as before by the Royal College of Physicians at £15.

The various contributions examine how partnerships between patients, artists, clinicians, architects and managers can contribute significantly to the development and practice of patient-centred care. It provides a clear conceptual framework for understanding the healing environment, gives examples of good practice and reveals the creative possibilities of such interdisciplinary partnerships. Equally importantly, scientific evidence of the impact of the environment on recovery and well-being is convincingly presented (ISBN 1-86016-191-X)