The Creative Health Associates Programme is being delivered by seven Creative Health Associates hosted by Integrated Care Boards, one in each NHS region in England. They are supported by a Creative Health Programme Manager through peer support and leadership development.
This programme will support the NCCH’s ambition to foster the conditions for creative health to be integral to health and care and demonstrate the power of culture and creativity to benefit the lives of individuals and communities.
The programme will deliver:
Improved understanding about potential cultural sector contribution at a neighbourhood, place and systems level within health and social care
Mapping of existing provision and delivery partners within host Integrated Care Systems and mapping of networks and key actors and relationships in the region
Information exchange and connections between cultural practitioners and health professionals
Collation of useful and useable data sets identifying local and regional priorities and supporting the cultural sector to understand and use data in planning and delivery, including health inequalities data
The spread of good practice and models for embedding creative health at a systems, place and neighbourhood level
A Creative Health Huddle, exploratory co-production creative activities or events with people with lived experience of mental health services
Connections with the National Academy for Social Prescribing regional teams to support embedding social prescribing across the cultural sector and identifying needs of cultural sector in developing consortia, collaboration and partnership delivery
A partnership project with Integrated Care Systems and the cultural sector to develop a Creative Health Maturity Framework for use in place-based working.
The Creative Health Associates programme represents a major investment from Arts Council England and the legacy and future of the creative health field is an important dimension of the work we will deliver together. The programme will make a significant contribution to meeting the aims of Arts Council England’s Creative Health and Wellbeing plan by promoting creative health as a fundamental part of living well and by placing creativity at the heart of people’s lives, particularly those experiencing inequalities.