Welcome to the new ACHWS Development Coordinator

 

ACHWS is looking to achieve the ambitions set out in our strategic plan, but in order to do that we needed someone to work with the Board of Trustees to develop scope and strengthen the impact of the network. We sourced funding and outlined a brief for a Development Coordinator and are delighted to announce the appointment of Nancy Riach who joined the team in June. You can contact her on nancy@achws.org

Nancy will be the day-to-day contact for ACHWS and will be supporting the board to activate the ambition strategic plan including arranging an online and in person events programme, build the network, sharing information, research, best practice and case studies through our social media and our e-bulletin as well as creating opportunities for discussion and collaboration and collating feedback to inform and advise government.

Nancy joins us with spent over 30 years working in and around the arts and culture sector and has a diverse range of knowledge and experience. She has held various senior roles specifically focused on communications, stakeholder management, business planning, event management and development. Nancy has a broad range of experience from grassroots community projects to two of Scotland’s National Performing Companies and The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

You can contact Nancy to say hello, let her know about projects you are working on, ways we can support you, events or topics you are interested in or anything else you want to talk to us about.

Coming Together | Arts, Culture, Health, Wellbeing + Climate

On the 23rd of September ACHWS held on online event with a focus on climate. Chris Fremantle with input from Lauren Blair, Laurie Duffy, Victoria Hume, Kieran Jack, Gemma Kitson, Leila Loder, Jackie Sands, and Ben Twist reports on what was discussed.

Culture and the arts have a key role at the intersection of health & wellbeing and the climate and biodiversity crises – this was the clear conclusion of the first session held in Scotland focused on the issue.

With speakers from the largest NHS Board in Scotland, the lead organisation focused on greening the arts in Scotland, a socially engaged arts organisation working in a post-industrial context in the West of Scotland, and from a key representative organisation in England, this event scoped out the complexity as well as the opportunities for arts, culture, health and wellbeing to engage with environment. The event was put together in collaboration with Voluntary Health Scotland  .

Arts and Sustainability – A New Agenda

The session led off with a presentation from NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (NHSGGC). This highlighted both the significant challenges for Health Boards as well as demonstrating the role of the arts in addressing these challenges.

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Kieran Jack (Assistant Sustainability Officer) led off by highlighting David Attenborough’s statement “Anything we can’t do for ever is by definition unsustainable”. Kieran highlighted the range of challenges including the ‘estate’ (all the buildings and landscapes that an NHS Board is responsible for) as well as the transport, food, and waste challenges.

Kieran highlighted the new standards for buildings that the NHS are working to which has resulted in the new Clydebank Health Centre having heat pumps in the Clyde. Heat pumps take ambient warmth in the river water and turn it into heat for the building. He went to say that NHSGGC is commissioning its first fully net carbon zero health centre.

Gemma Kitson (Greenspace and Urban Realm Officer) discussed the significant challenges for the NHS in turning its traditionally mown grass greenspaces into biodiversity hotspots. She noted the close correlation between disadvantaged communities and areas of ‘vacant and derelict land’ (a specific category for the Scottish Government and Local Authority planning.

Gemma highlighted numerous specific initiatives across NHSGGC to improve landscapes including at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. This agenda has very strong ongoing collaborative work with the arts. Jackie Sands (Health Improvement Senior: Arts and Health) picked up the story talking about the partnership work with Scottish Canals which has resulted in a significant green corridor linking the new Woodside, Possil and Maryhill health centres and the Clay Pits Nature Reserve via the opening up of a public access route the Garscube link as part of the Woodside Health and Care Centre art and environment strategy. Amongst the artworks on the route are some of the last pieces of poetry, earth and climate messages to us all, made by the eminent Scottish writer Alasdair Gray. Jackie highlighted the evidence base for arts & health work, in particular Janet Ruiz’ Literature Review. This drew attention to the overlaps in creating quality places, green amenity for community respite and active travel as part of Public Health cross boundary working, community wealth building and the work being taken forward to improve GGC estate helping residents to see value in accessing, making use of these sites and spaces – strengthening the health service Anchor status.

Leila Loder (Waste Officer) picked up the story and highlighted two specific areas of waste – food and plastic. She noted the multiple challenges for reducing waste including staff habits, internal space and infection control. Leila highlighted the impact of a project at Stobhill and Victoria hospitals which had saved NHSGGC £19,000 simply by separating waste effectively.

The value of partnership work between the sustainability team’s different agenda’s and the arts came across very clearly and the potential for the arts to align with NHSGGC’s net zero strategy is increasingly a priority. There was an interesting discussion on the potential for embedding an artist within the Sustainability Team and having a Sustainability Lead for Health Improvement too.

Climate Awards

The second presentation came from Victoria Hume of the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA), the equivalent of ACHWS in England.

CHWA is a national membership organisation for creative health, with about 6000 members from freelancers to large cultural institutions – and a range of national and regional strategic partnerships. Its three pillars of work are advocacy, networking, and providing resources for the people doing and seeking to understand this work.

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Victoria focused on CHWA’s Climate Awards which have now formed part of their programme for 3 years. 18 projects have been shortlisted over the 3 years and Victoria offered some findings from reviewing this portfolio. She highlighted that the arts & health sector has tenacity – it has been a long and challenging journey to mainstream the arts in health and wellbeing. The projects shortlisted for the Climate Awards suggest several themes including an increasing awareness of the lived experience of climate change, and a focus on skills-development for participants – from horticulture to design and planning. Many offered support for physical and/or mental health. Most of the projects depended on robust and often extensive local partnership to maximise their impact. Often, the arts were specifically used to challenge entrenched systems and create discussion and change, while heritage programmes and cultural buildings offered spaces in which activism and learning could be cultivated.

Victoria noted a positive shift in the last few years, whereby funders and commissioners may be more willing to support work that sees climate and health as intersecting issues, and perhaps beginning to move away from siloes of socially engaged practice.

CHWA’s starter-for-10 resource on climate and health can be found here.

Clyde Rebuilt

The final presentation focused on Clyde Rebuilt , a climate adaptation project involving Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS), the lead organisation for greening the arts in Scotland, and RIG Arts, the socially engaged arts organisation in Greenock.

Ben Twist (Director of CCS) provided the overarching context for adaptation – a key area of work focused on the challenges of being resilient to climate change. Whilst the focus has been on ‘mitigation’ of climate change by actions to reduce carbon emissions, there is increased attention to adaptation, particularly of infrastructure.

Clyde Rebuilt was funded as part of the EU’s Climate KIC Innovation Programme which aims to stimulate regional innovation in adaptation. Clyde Rebuilt was led by Climate Ready Clyde, a consortium of local government (7 local authorities), transport, health and other agencies. Creative Carbon Scotland brought the cultural dimension to the table and Ben highlighted the important impacts on the project of the work with Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) and Rig Arts. He described the way the event at GWL framed the climate crisis in terms of colonialism.

The EIT Climate-KIC approach focused on changing the system rather than individual behaviour change. The Clyde Rebuilt team decided to focus on adapting to excess heat, which is not much considered in Glasgow (!) rather than the more obvious topic of flooding, which is where some work has already been done. A key element of the work done was building a map of the complex social system within which excess heat will be dealt with, to understand who might need to be involved. This included working with organisations which wouldn’t normally be invited to be part of climate change discussion such as housing associations and community groups. They also undertook a Social Impact Assessment. CCS worked with the Climate Ready Clyde Board and those organisations involved in the SIA to introduce more emotion and different ways of thinking into meetings by starting them with poetry – either reading it or running a short workshop on writing it – and ‘imagining exercises’, whereby participants were asked to imagine themselves in a transformed Glasgow in 2045. A survey suggested this increased participation in the meetings. Evaluation of the impacts of this work is available here.

CCS also worked on changing and simplifying the language used to communicate about adaptation, and by working with Rig Arts and Glasgow Women’s Library brought different voices into the discussion.

Laurie Duffy the lead artist for RIG Arts on the Clyde Rebuilt project introduced the organisation. RIG Arts is an award winning, socially engaged arts charity based in Inverclyde bringing artists and the community together in a collaborative and creative way. RIG Arts design and deliver a dynamic programme of visual arts & film projects, workshops, exhibitions, public artworks, community spaces and events. They use creativity to work with people to affect change in Urban Regeneration, Climate Challenge, Heritage and Mental Health. RIG Arts are passionate about using creativity and innovation to influence change and to make a positive difference in people’s lives and their environments. They have also collaborated with NHSGGC on other projects including the New Greenock Health and Care Centre’s Building Better Healthcare Award winning collaborative arts strategy ‘Lochs , Rivers and Sea – Found, Fragmented and Forgotten’ project, led by Lead Artist and Curator Stephen Hurrel.

Laurie described how their approach to Clyde Rebuilt grew out of ongoing programmes focused on working with communities on mental health involving projects on upcycling. Until that point, Rig Arts had not looked at adaptation so this was a new area for them. Working with a poet and a collage artist, workshop participants were sent surprise activity packs so they could write poetry and draw maps of an adapted Inverclyde. Workshops were then held on-line as Clyde Rebuilt was disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown. The results are available here and the zine Costa Del Gourock.

At Glasgow Women’s Library a speaker Dana Thomas, who works with the Ubuntu Woman’s Shelter, an organisation working with migrants who have no recourse to public funds, highlighted the links between climate change and colonialism and sought to change the discourse and perspective from a western, white-focused one to one which acknowledges how a colonial framing still pervades both action and discussion. This opened up new avenues of thought for a local authority officer present who responded, as well as the audience.

The major takeaway Laurie and Ben highlighted was the difference in response to the adaptation from those involved professionally and those who were involved as inhabitants. The former focused on organisational issues such as buildings, infrastructure and risk registers, whereas the latter asked questions such as ‘What if I can’t leave my home?’ and ‘What if my home isn’t suitable during a heatwave?’

The chat included various useful references:

Thanks to Voluntary Health Scotland and in particular Lauren Blair for hosting and support with chat.

 

 

 

Grampian Hospital Arts Trust | New Artist Commissions

GHAT are looking for 2 artists to help us develop a sustainable model for arts and well-being in rural areas.

Co-create – Designed with the community it serves.

There are 2 commissions available to develop a sustainable arts and well-being model in rural areas. Co-Create is a project to support well-being for people within Huntly and the surrounding area through creative activity. This six-month project is to research and develop a sustainable arts and wellbeing model in rural areas which will result in access to arts activity for many years to come.

Both artists will work out of Jubilee Hospital, Huntly. We are looking for an artists with a research-based practice, and one with a socially engaged/participatory practice to work collaboratively on this project.

For more information click on the link: https://bit.ly/CoCreateOpportunities

Deadline – 1st December

ACHWS submission of evidence to Scottish Government’s Spending Review

The Scottish Government has undertaken a Resource Spending Review. The purpose of a resource spending review is to set out spending plans for the remainder of the parliamentary term which support the Scottish Government’s ambitions. On 24th February 2022, Robbie McGhee, the Chair of ACHWS gave evidence to the Scottish Government’s Finance and Public Adminstration Committee.

The final report can be viewed here. Robbie’s evidence to support the written submission below can be found on pages 22-40 of the pdf report.

The evidence that has been submitted in advance of the meeting can be view here:

ACHWS_submission_SG_spendingreview_Feb_2022

ACHWS offers a platform to ask questions & bringing different voices, perspectives, disciplines & sectors together

image of someone pointing to an artwork

image of someone pointing to an artwork

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted existing health inequalities across society. A large and growing body of evidence tells us that cultural engagement has a key role in helping to helping to address health inequalities within our communities.

Many of ACHWS membership are committed to increasing opportunities to engage with the arts and culture within health, social care and community settings. There is a huge amount of expertise and innovation within this community of practice, but there is also so much still to learn as we look to tackle the shocking gaps in equity highlighted by the pandemic.

How do the arts and culture contribute to tackling these inequalities? How can we ensure that our understanding of culture is varied and diverse? How do we continue to widen access to creative and cultural opportunities to support wellbeing? As a community, one amongst many rich and diverse communities, how can we as individuals and organisations make sure that we don’t perpetuate inequalities that exist elsewhere in the system? The arts, culture, heritage, health and social care sectors increasingly overlap, so what can we learn from one another?

As a network ACHWS hopes to offer a platform to ask questions and bringing different voices, perspectives, disciplines and sectors together. For this reason we decided to use our first newsletter to focus on the role the arts and culture can play in helping to address health inequalities. Over the Winter months we will be hosting a series of online conversations exploring the role the arts and culture more generally can play in helping to address health inequalities. The programme will cover many themes and perspectives including: mental health, food poverty and women’s health.

We’re sure many of you will already be having similar conversations, and we hope that together we can inform cross-sector dialogue and advocacy for the impact the arts and culture can have on health and wellbeing.

Please get in touch if you would like to share your experiences and any work you are involved in. We would especially like to hear from people who are often under-represented within conversations about arts, culture, health and wellbeing.

image credit: Artlink Edinburgh & Lothian

Join ACHWS

photo of young people in theatre activity

photo of young people in theatre activityJoin us

Arts Culture Health and Wellbeing Scotland (ACHWS) network is for anyone who believes in the positive impact of the arts and culture in improving health and wellbeing.

The network offers a space to highlight creative health collaborations, share practice and learning, and to provide information and support for anyone involved in and interested in art and culture within health, social care, community or voluntary services. We aim to be a responsive network for anyone working across arts and culture, health and wellbeing in Scotland.

We are reaching out to raise awareness of the network and to encourage new people to join.

We want your voices to be heard. Soon we will be asking members to complete a survey to find out how ACHWS can best support you and your interest in arts, culture, health, social care and wellbeing.

We aim to support the increasing scope and depth of creative health collaborations across Scotland and more widely. Some key areas of interests which we would like to explore through the network are:

  • How do we increase opportunities to engage with the arts and culture within health, social care and community settings, while ensuring the quality of that engagement?
  • How can we work towards integrating arts and culture into health, social care and community services?
  • How can we influence system change to be able to sustain quality and meaningful practice?

Join here!

Follow us using @achwscotland on Twitter and Facebook and visit our website for more information on some of the amazing work being carried out in Scotland.

Creative Scotland met with Robbie McGhee, Chair of ACHWS and Claire Stevens, Secretary of ACHWS to find out more about the network, who it’s for, and the benefits of joining. Watch the video here.

Please get in touch if you would like us to highlight your projects or organisation.

We look forward to hearing from you!