Health and Wellbeing is a key theme under-pinning our work and we are creating spaces for conversations around cultural collaborations on health inequalities, community wellbeing, mental health, social prescribing and related themes and concerns. We are exploring how, where and why these initiatives are emerging, how they are being supported, what their impacts are and the role that policy, funding initiatives and other factors are playing, or have the potential to play, in their development.

Through this Collaborations in Creative Health workshop we are setting out to create a space to:

• highlight the role of collaborative initiatives with a focus on community health and wellbeing, health inequalities, the creative health infrastructure and related areas that are occurring between key stakeholders including: Higher Education, the arts and cultural sector, local authorities, community partnerships and other relevant actors.
• showcase a diverse range of research projects and creative collaborations from around the country and beyond.
• encourage dialogue, discussion and information sharing between researchers and others working in Higher Education, arts and cultural practitioners, policy-makers and funders on this topic.

The event will include contributions from Jennifer Crook (Dreamachine/Collective Act), Kiran Manley (AHRC Health Inequalities Programme Coordinator), Alex Coulter (National Centre for Creative Health), Prof Anthony Caleshu and Prof James Daybell (University of Plymouth), Dr Nicky Abraham and Rachel Hudspith (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), Dr Maria Turri (Queen Mary University of London), Dr Rowan Bailey (University of Huddersfield), Dr Jake Abrams (Kingston University) and Georgina Potier (Get Better Books), Dr ‘Funmi Adewole (De Montfort University) and Victoria Hume (Culture Health & Wellbeing Alliance).

This event is aimed at those with an active interest in health and wellbeing, including health inequalities, community wellbeing, social prescribing and related themes and the role that cultural knowledge exchange collaborations are currently playing or indeed have the potential to play in addressing the challenges associated with this major national issue. We warmly invite attendees from across the higher education, arts and cultural, local and regional government, policymakers, funders and other public and private sector bodies working in this field to join us for a morning of key notes, case studies, panel discussions and workshops.

Call for contributors: We also welcome proposals for contributions and/or case studies around these themes. If you are involved in the development or curation of cultural or creative collaborative projects on the topic of health and wellbeing, we would like to hear from you. If you have written reports, papers, blogs or other relevant materials that you would like to share via the NCACE Repository, we would also like to hear from you. We are keen to hear about initiatives that are both established and emerging.

Do get in touch with us if you would like to talk about research you are undertaking in this field or about an initiative (large or small) that you are active in developing or supporting as we are also currently developing a range of case-studies for publication later in the year.

Email: laura@tcce.co.uk in the first instance.