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Contribute to the evaluation of the Creative Health Associates Programme

Contribute to the evaluation of the Creative Health Associates Programme

The Creative Health Associates Programme is about fostering the conditions for creative health to be integral to health and care and demonstrating the power of culture and creativity to benefit the lives of individuals and communities. Since July 2023 it has been delivered by seven Creative Health Associates (CHAs) hosted by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), one in each NHS region in England. The programme is overseen and supported by the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and funded by Arts Council England (ACE).

The impact of and learning from the initiative is currently being evaluated by independent freelance researchers, Gemma Buckland and Beth Crosland who are keen to hear from anyone who has been involved in the programme, whether your involvement was large or small i.e. from receiving emails from a CHA to working together on an event or project.

The evaluation seeks to understand how these roles have influenced health and care systems and how they have been valued by stakeholders within these systems. The study focuses on the barriers and enablers to embedding creative health within systems, the ripple effect of roles like CHAs, and where these roles might best be located to achieve maximum impact.

If you would like to share your valuable perspectives, please complete the brief survey by 29/01/25.

Survey Link: https://forms.office.com/e/iRRk0bi2hr

Further information about the evaluation is provided below.

An update about the key findings emerging from the study will be provided on the NCCH website in early February.

About the CHA Evaluation study

The study has a mixed methods approach framed by systems thinking and uses in depth inductive interviewing, focus group interviews, a stakeholder survey, and participatory workshops to explore and make sense of the findings. This approach has been chosen to embrace the complexity in which the CHA programme works and to employ inclusive, systemic approaches that seek to understand it better. Integrating systems tools with traditional research methods allows everyone involved to dig deeper into the factors that often hide ‘under the surface’ acting as barriers to collaboration and change and can help with identifying solutions and leverage points that can remove barriers and scale up the good or promising practice.

You can read more about the Iceberg model – one of the systems thinking tools being used in the study here: https://about.ecochallenge.org/iceberg-model/

The study is being carried out between November 2024 and March 2025 and is expected to be publicly available in April 2025.

Find out more about the Programme and the Creative Health Associate in your region here >>

If you have questions about the evaluation, the CHA programme more widely and/or would like to be notified when the evaluation study is available, please contact Jayne Howard - jayne@ncch.org.uk


Image: The Evaluation Study will use an Iceberg model

Image: The Evaluation Study will use an Iceberg model

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