Collaborating to scale & implement established arts and health programmes

Symposium: Collaborative approaches to scaling established arts and health programmes - 27 June.

This event is free to attend and lunch will be provided. Registration is from 10.00

English National Ballet, Rosetta Life and Breathe Arts Health Research present a symposium following their participation in SHAPER that discusses the learning from the programme and aims to bring established arts and health initiatives and professionals together to explore how we can collaborate to reach more people.

SHAPER (Scaling-up Health Arts Programmes: Implementation and Effectiveness Research) is the world’s largest ever study into the impact and scalability of arts interventions on physical and mental health, undertaken by King’s College London and UCL, and supported by a £2.5m award from the Wellcome Trust. This year, in the first of a series of events, we are celebrating the role of our three arts partners: Breathe Arts Health Research, English National Ballet, and Rosetta Life.

In partnership with the National Centre for Creative Health, the symposium will showcase the learning from these and other established, extraordinary arts in health programmes, with a view to informing best practice for creative health implementation across the UK.

We recognise the ongoing challenges faced by the NHS and the role that creativity can play in improving health and wellbeing, particularly through evidence-based programmes, breaking down barriers to accessing support and transforming the lives of those who are isolated and often fall through the gaps of care.

This symposium will examine the essential components of successful delivery and how we can work together to effect lasting change. We invite organisations from across the UK to join us and explore national impact and scalability for arts and health programmes. There will be an opportunity for sharing learning and we hope the day offers an opportunity to network with a view to developing new partnerships across the sector.

The event will take place at English National Ballet, Mulryan Centre for Dance, on 27th June and will feature workshops, discussion sessions and presentations.

Read more about the Shaper study here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/shaper

This event is for organisations and individuals with an interest in scaling arts and health programmes, including established artists and organisations delivering arts and health, researchers, health partners and commissioners.

Places are limited - please notify us and cancel your booking via Eventbrite if you are unable to attend.

Above: English National Ballet's Dance for Parkinson's programme.

English National Ballet’s (ENB) Dance for Parkinson’s programme was established in 2010, and welcomes people living with Parkinson’s, their loved ones, and carers, to experience the joy and health benefits of dance, music, and social connection. Delivered at ENB’s Company headquarters and across five affiliated partner hubs in Liverpool, Oxford, Ipswich, Cardiff and London, Dance for Parkinson’s offers classes inspired by ENB’s on-stage repertoire and is led by highly experienced dance artists and musicians. Participants can also choose to attend ENB performances and take part in events and workshops to gain insight into the Company’s work behind the scenes. The evidence-based programme was a model for groundbreaking research published in 2015 by Dr Sara Houston from Roehampton University and is a case study for Mayor of London, London Health Inequalities Strategy for A Fairer, Healthier London.

https://www.ballet.org.uk/

Above: Breathe Arts Health Research's Breathe Melodies for Mums programme.

Breathe Arts Health Research (Breathe) are world leaders in combining creativity and robust scientific research to improve health and wellbeing. We deliver diverse evidence-based programmes across a range of art forms, to meet specific clinical and wellbeing needs, and use our decadeof expertise and experience to lead creative talks and training.

Breathe Melodies for Mums is a ground-breaking group singing programme based on research by the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London, which showed group singing could lead to faster recovery in moderate-severe symptoms of PND than creative play or care as normal, greater increases in perceived mother-baby bonding, and a greater decrease in cortisol (a stress hormone).

Breathe Melodies for Mums sessions allow mothers to connect with each other in a supportive safe space, establish a structure to their week, and have a positive experience to focus on whilst learning new techniques to support bonding with their babies through song. Breathe are deeply rooted in local communities to ensure we reach a diverse range of women who may not be accessing healthcare services, and have reached over 1000 new mothers and babies through participation in the programme. Breathe have recently collaborated with the World Health Organisation to train teams in Denmark, Italy and Romania in the Breathe Melodies for Mums delivery model.

https://breatheahr.org

@BreatheAHR (X, Instagram and Facebook)

Above: Rosetta Life's Brain Odysseys programme.

Rosetta Life is an arts in health innovation charity, who have 25 years of evidence based practice working with leading artists. They pioneer meaningful performances that are transformative to participants, audiences and society. Each project is a social problem-solving incubator presenting scalable solutions. Their ongoing project Brain Odysseys has included performances: Hospital Passion Play, an opera performed by seventy performers including professional singers and a choir of twenty stroke survivors at the Victoria and Albert Museum; I Look For The Think, an online opera released during the pandemic, and touring music and dance show Stroke Odysseys.

In 2024 Rosetta Life presented 360 immersive film Room2Dream, made with young people from 7 countries facing loss, life altering illness. Rosetta Life delivered a national carers programme Heart of Care in 2024, featuring public artworks created in partnership with Bristol Black Carers, Kingston Carers and Helix Arts.

www.rosettalife.org

@rosettalife

The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) aims to advance good practice and research, inform policy and promote collaboration, helping to foster the conditions for creative health to be integral to health and social care and wider systems. It was set up in response to Recommendation 1 in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing’s report: Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing and became a registered charity in 2020.

In December 2023, the National Centre for Creative Health and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing published a major report, the Creative Health Review: How Policy Can Embrace Creative Health, evidencing that creative health needs to form an integral part of a 21st-century health and social care system to reduce health inequalities, increase life expectancy and build social capital.

https://ncch.org.uk

@TheNCCH

The Creative Health Associates Programme, funded by Arts Council England, 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. The aim of the programme is to embed creative approaches and activities in health and care systems across the country and includes knowledge exchange and development of connections between cultural practitioners and health professionals, spreading good practice and models for embedding creative health at a systems, place and neighbourhood level and the production of a Creative Health Maturity Framework for use in place-based working.

Host or Publisher SHAPER, King's College London