Meet the Creative Health Leads: José Sunshine-Okoro on bringing culture and health together in Walsall
From museums to wellbeing
My career has moved between museums, galleries and arts, heritage, community engagement, creative practice and, more recently, psychotherapy and wellbeing. I’ve spent many years collaborating with artists and communities who face barriers to accessing culture, developing programmes and partnerships exploring how culture can create spaces for people to express themselves and connect with others.
So, when the opportunity came to bring these various parts of my experience together through creative health, it felt like a very natural next step.
Why Walsall?
I was particularly drawn to the opportunity in Walsall because this is not about introducing something completely new. There is already a rich network of cultural organisations, health and care services and people doing creative work across the borough. More than that, what I’ve found so far is an openness, and a proactive drive to see where creative health can fit into existing activity.
My role is partly about understanding that landscape, connecting people, building relationships, and helping explore what might be possible when these different worlds work more closely together.
A borough focused on prevention
Walsall faces significant health inequalities.
One in five residents have a limiting health condition, 56% live in areas among the 20% most deprived nationally, and 28% report low mental wellbeing. (Walsall Together Outcomes Framework).
At the same time, Walsall has a strong focus on prevention and reducing inequalities. Walsall Council Plan 2025 to 2029 places prevention, equity, partnership and being insight-led at the heart of its approach.
The new Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Neighbourhood Health and Care Plan are also placing greater emphasis on helping people stay healthy, making support easier to access and bringing health, care, and community organisations together to create healthier neighbourhoods.
For me, this creates an important question: what contribution can culture and creativity make to those ambitions? It's a question I’m asking individuals and organisations as I map what's happening across the borough.
Listening first
I’m still early in the role, so much of my time so far is about listening, learning and meeting people. I’m interested in finding out where the gaps are, who isn’t being reached and what gets in the way of people accessing opportunities that could support their health and wellbeing.
Some of my own work has involved collaborating with people with lived experience of homelessness through heritage and performance, and with women with lived experience of domestic abuse through creative writing. These experiences have shown me how creativity can create diverse ways to express experience, build connection, support mental wellbeing, and develop a sense of agency.
For me, creative health isn’t about turning artists into therapists or cultural organisations into health services. It's about recognising the contribution that creativity, culture, and communities can make alongside health and care and about finding connections.
What's next, and how to get involved
Over the coming months, I’m looking forward to continuing to build relationships across Walsall and finding connections and learning from the other Creative Health Leads in the national programme, led by the National Centre for Creative Health to explore what a creative health approach can look like in Walsall.
I’d particularly like to hear from people already doing creative, cultural, community, health, or wellbeing work in Walsall and across the Black Country and from anyone who thinks there are people, places, or ideas I should know about. If that’s you, I’d love to hear from you.
There is a lot to learn, but also an extraordinarily rich infrastructure of distinct activity taking place in Walsall. I am looking forward to discovering what we can do together to build a cohesive ecosystem.
About the author
José Sunshine-Okoro is a writer, curator, visual artist and psychotherapist, and now works as Creative Health Systems Lead for Walsall Council, through the Walsall Together Partnership.
Contact José Sunshine-Okoro
