Creative Health Updates: Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025
Our Creative Health Lead, Gemma Alldred shares her reflections on Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025 as well as looking at what is coming up next.
It’s creativity and wellbeing week!
The annual festival radiating out from the incredible London Arts and Health invites us all to celebrate and take part in creativity for our wellbeing.
A massive shout out to everyone who’s taking part in this year’s Dorset programme, and behind the scenes we’ve been working hard to raise awareness and collaborate across culture, and health to spread the word that being creative is an important part of living well and keeping healthy.
Share your stories and remember to search or use #CreativeHealthDorset to see the wide range of amazing work taking place across our County.
“What is Creative Health?’ Film
Earlier this year I had the delight of visiting a range of projects taking place both across the County, and the life course as part of shooting the film, ‘What is Creative Health?’ A co-production with National Centre for Creative Health
The film is part of our strategic aim to increase awareness of Creative Health and is designed to help people new to the ideas better understand what it is, why it works, and how to join the movement to ensure everyone can access creativity as part of a happy and healthy lifestyle.
I was delighted to witness and take part in really high quality Creative Health activities delivered by highly skilled and knowledgeable practitioners, from Oops Wow Messy Art supporting young people and families in Bridport, via CoCreate making art accessible with BSL users in Dorchester to percussion jamming on the stroke ward at Dorset County Hospital with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and then ending the week with the celebratory Parkinson’s Dance over at Pavillion Dance South West in Bournemouth it was a genuinely delightful and life affirming process.
Creative Health Quality Framework
What makes a Creative Health intervention a quality one is the subject of the Creative Health Quality Framework (CHQF), something I was delighted to share at the Creative Health and Wellbeing Dorset Forum yesterday.
Gemma in front of presentation “Introduction to the Creative Health Quality Framework”
Forum Guests at Lighthouse Poole
The CHQF helps us to define and work towards quality in our projects, which in turn supports better outcomes. Published in 2023, it defines good practice whilst being flexible enough to accommodate for a wide range of practices and contexts
It’s a great tool for change, as it helps us advocate for the work, and inform investment, designed for artists, commissioners and wider stakeholders to use together it can support planning and evaluation stages too [for more ideas on measuring impact, take a look at the Creative Health Impact Framework
Supported by Arts Council England, and developed with over 200 people from culture and NHS, it was designed to align to NHS quality frameworks, as well as ACE Investment Principles
If you missed yesterday’s training session, you can learn more by checking out Jane Willis talking about the framework at the Health + Culture event in January 2024.
What’s Next
As Summer really starts to settle in, it’s time to take a focus towards co-writing the Creative Health Strategy for Dorset with NHS and Public Health; if you want to keep connected to Creative Health in Dorset - check out our facebook group to get updates and information about the next Creative Health and Wellbeing Forum meeting.
If you’re delivering work in creative health and would like to join the creative health action group and bring your energy to a collective direction then email me.
Stay creative, stay well and enjoy the rest of CWW 2025!