Health and Well Being
Creative Health and Well-being
Creativity, arts and culture are positively impacting on people's health and well being.
Liverpool, as European Capital of Culture 2008, has brought together artists, cultural partners, health and care practitioners to create another story separate to the large and crowd pulling events.
Through culture and the arts we can find meaning, make sense of our experiences, express our thoughts and emotions, make and sustain relationships, discover skills and qualities in our selves and others. These experiences provide an opportunity to integrate body, mind and spirit; to learn and to make changes in lifestyle.
Below you will find examples of how culture and the arts are influencing individuals, communities and health and care organisations.
Waiting
The Waiting programme utilises a unique partnership between health professionals and the arts and cultural sector to ensure that health and well-being is at the heart of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations.
Waiting builds on the established idea that our surroundings, our relationships and how we spend our time can have a massive bearing on both our emotional and physical well- being. Waiting injects creativity into traditional care solutions and settings, to expand our ideas about what keeps us healthy and create new opportunities for improving the patient experience.
Waiting has already been showcased at various conferences for 2008 and will be at the creative health Art of Living conference on 5 December 08.
Why not download the January 2008 creative health and well-being newsletter
Funded by Liverpool Culture Company, Liverpool Primary Care NHS Trust and Mersey Care NHS Trust. The cultural partners who are delivering this imaginative programme for 2008 are FACT (Foundation of Art and Creative Technology), Chaturangan and The Comedy Trust.
Art of Living
The Art of Living is an annual event to celebrate and explore the benefits of creativity on Well Being.
Launched on the 1 December 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, the Art of Living conference, has been held subsequently at The Lighthouse, Anfield and last year at Crawford House, Toxteth and has provided opportunities for fun and laughter as well as exploring in some depth the meaning of well being and how creativity enhances this sense of well being.
This year's event will take place in early December. Look out for more details on this page nearer the time.
Midsummer Dreams
Midsummer Dreams is an annual day of fun and laughter for everyone to enjoy and feel good, and it is all free.
This year's Midsummer Dreams will took place on Saturday 21 June 2008 at Lark Lane Community Centre and Sefton Park, from 1pm with plenty to do all afternoon and on into the evening. There is also a smaller event at Aintree Hospital.
Arts and cultural groups showcased their work with performances and exhibitions to enjoy.
A Creative Health Network event, the Liverpool Culture Company and partners
Well Being Treasure Chest
A programme in development, linking the Treasures project with a pilot in partnership with Mersey Care NHS Trust. Here groups of service users, individuals and staff were encouraged to reflect on what enhances their well being.
Workshops will run in 2008 with a professional artist on the making of the Well Being Treasure Chests so that staff can hold their own workshops in nursing homes and day centres.
These Treasure Chest workshops will be designed to encourage personal reflection on well being and what that might mean to us as individuals. What makes us feel good in our daily lives and whether we can re-introduce a long standing or perhaps forgotten cultural interest in some way?
Tales of Two Cities
Did you know that whilst Liverpool is the European Capital of Culture 2008 there is a Non-European equivalent? Stavanger, Norway is 2008's Non-European Capital of Culture.
Together with Mersey Care NHS Trust, we are embarking on a joint creative project with Stavanger, Tales of Two Cities.
Tales of Two Cities will encourage service users in Mersey Care and their counterparts in Stavanger to creatively respond to the theme 'What Liverpool/Stavanger Means toMe?'
The intention is to work with a variety of partners from different fields of creative media e.g. film, audio, creative writing, music, dance, arts and crafts in order to realise a creative response to the theme, with journal records kept by everybody involved in the project.
In this shared year as Culture Capitals, a small group of Mersey Care staff and service users involved in the project have made a trip to Norway to learn more about services for people with mental health issues in the Stavangar Region and to take part in a day-long public exhibition of work by service users from Liverpool and Stavangar.
This autumn will see a return visit by a group from Stavangar with a joint creative workshop led by artists from the two cities and another public exhibition of work from Tales of Two Cities in Liverpool.
Mental Well Being Impact Assessment (MWIA)
The World's first comprehensive MWIA has been developed as a collaboration of many partners who have an interest in contributing to promoting well being.
From April 2006 to March 07 a mental well being impact assessment of the European Capital of Culture programme was carried out. This was a pilot project of the tool kit.
This has been an exciting and significant piece of work with national and international interest. It demonstrates the commitment of Liverpool Culture Company to the benefit of creativity, culture and the arts on the well being of the people living, working and visiting Liverpool.
Please follow these links to download the tool kit.
The pilot MWIA will also be available to download from this link soon.
http://www.northwest.csip.org.uk/work/mental-health-and-social-wellbeing.html
Partners include:
Liverpool Culture Company, Government office for the North West, International Health Impact Assessment Consortium Liverpool University, Liverpool Healthy City, Mental Health Foundation, Inukshuk, Liverpool Primary Care NHS Trust, Lambeth Primary Care NHS Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Health First Specialists in Health Promotion for Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, Mersey Care NHS Trust.
Making More Sense
Making More Sense is the name given to an exciting three year art project offering people who have suffered a brain injury access to many creative mediums.
The Making Sense workshops are places where creativity and health come together to aid rehabilitation and instil a sense of well being and ownership.
The project is managed by professional artists Steve Rooney and Sue Williams of The Artists' Group (TAG) with Gary Radice (Registered Mental Health Nurse / Community Liaison Nurse) lead for Mersey Care NHS Trust.
Since the start of the project in 2006 there have been many success including participation in 2006 Biennial in the form of an invitation from the Chilean artist Mario Navarro to make work for his installation, Two Rooms, which was located in the city centre Picton Library.
The group have also taken part in 10 bespoke workshops at the Tate later making art work for exhibition which was inspired by the collection. In August 2007 Making More Sense produced images for Three Billboards which celebrated the project and the City's 800th birthday.
Also in 2007, artists Steve Rooney and Sue Williams made a presentation about the project at the international Brain Injuries conference here in Liverpool.
These are just a few of the many events and exhibitions that have taken place but not forgetting the future, in 2008, working once again with National Museums Liverpool a major event will be the creation of art work, made as a collaboration between the artists and the participants, will be exhibited at the Sudley Gallery in Mossley Hill during the 2008 Biennial.
Funded by North West Arts, The Liverpool Culture Company and Mersey Care NHS Trust
Creative NHS Built Environment
This work is being undertaken in the context of the investment in the healthcare built environment both in primary and secondary care.
Extraordinary Journey
In 2007, for Liverpool's 800th birthday, the Culture Company together with a host of partners celebrated the impressive and pioneering contribution made by Merseyside's health & social care community to the culture of this city.
In such a year of heritage, Extraordinary Journey has been an opportunity to acknowledge significant Merseyside innovations in health and social care that have improved people's lives, not only here but throughout the world.
Extraordinary Journey has highlighted this important aspect of Liverpool's past and is still raising awareness of current innovators and inspiring aspirations about living and working in a healthy Liverpool.
From September last year the Extraordinary Journey was told through visual art, photography, drama, story and poetry.
Download Extraordinary Journey 2007 Highlights where you can view photographs and highlights from this three month festival.
Kitty Wilkinson, pioneer of public washhouses; Evan Thomas, a founder of the speciality of orthopaedics; and Thomas Fresh, the first Environmental Health Officer are amongst the many responsible for Merseyside's impressive record of new ideas in health care, as well as innovative projects promoting well-being in the community.
Discover the growing list of pioneers in the Extraordinary Journey Log .
If you know of any more then do get in touch at the email below. We are hoping sometime next year to republish the Extraordinary Journey brochure perhaps with some more of the innovative stories of the 21st century. If you have a story to tell please email Sharon Sephton at sharon.sephton@liverpool.gov.uk.
Useful links
For more information on any of the Creative Health & Well Being Projects call Julie Hanna, Health and Wellbeing Manager, on 0151 233 6393 or e-mail julie.hanna@liverpool.gov.uk.
Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Promoting Arts at Aintree: http://www.aintreehospitals.nhs.uk/promting_arts_in_hospital/promoting_arts_in_hospital.asp
Arts in Regeneration http://airassociates.org/Infinite_sea.html
Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust http://www.lwh.me.uk/index.php
Mersey Care NHS Trust http://www.merseycare.nhs.uk/learning_zone/Creative_Health_and_Wellbeing.asp
Royal Liverpool Children's NHS Trust http://www.alderhey.com/RLCH/home.asp
The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Roald Dahl Centre: http://www.old.rlbuht.nhs.uk/content/default.asp?web=243&sub=1081
Living Life to the Full: http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Publications/archive_2005/dcms_5yr_plan.htm - Department of Culture, media and Sport Five Year Plan (DCMS 2005)
North West Public Health Observatory
