Create Health tests and widens our understanding of living well. We view arts, creativity and culture as a fundamental part of living well, supporting recovery and contributing towards a sense of wellbeing for individuals, communities, and places.

Latest NHS Cultural Commissioning Programme

In 2022/2023, Create Gloucestershire secured NHS funding to commission arts and health projects through our Create Health strand of work. The 6 micro-experiments were designed to test what ‘living well’ means and how arts, creativity and culture contribute to it.

Find more information about these experiments and our learning as well as useful resources here.

The 6 micro experiments

BLOGS

Stories and case studies from people, communities and organisations who are involved in Arts and Health.

Blog

Top Tips for Ripple Effects Mapping - on your own!

Creative Catalyst Sophia, works in the Forest of Dean for Create Gloucestershire. She has used Ripple Effects Mapping to keep track of the connections she is making through her work.

Warm welcome to our artist in residence

Welcome to Lucy J Turner, the newest member of the CG team who is our artist in residence on the Healthy Communities Together Co-Lab programme.

Image alt-text: Co-lab participants Alan, Kia and Sophie in a lively discussion.

Introducing new CG board members this Summer

Welcome to our new board members bringing a wealth of experience to the team. Anne has worked in broadcasting and journalism and led the University of Gloucestershire School of Creative Industries. Jacqueline is a coach and writer and will be our voice for nature, supporting innovative approaches designed to engage creative practitioners, community groups to address the intertwined ecological and climate crises that we are grappling with.

Creative Health: UK State of the Sector Survey

The UK State of the Sector Survey was conducted between February and April 2023, to help understand more about the creative health sector in the UK. It was conducted as a collaboration between CHWA; the Wales Arts, Health & Wellbeing Network; Arts Health & Wellbeing Scotland; and Arts Care (Northern Ireland).

'Not a Single Tree but an Ecosystem: Building Cooperation, Communication and support’

Pippa Jones, CG’s founder and director was speaking at the Culture, Health & Wellbeing (CHWP) Alliance Conference in Barnsley as part of a panel convened to discuss how arts organisations and the health sector can work better together.

How did the Off We Go project go?

Find out more about the Off we Go project and the impact joining in with the activities had on those taking part.

Thinking differently about creative health

Research shows that participation in creative activity and art can reduce stress, improve self-esteem, and promote recovery.

But the therapeutic value of participatory arts extends far beyond benefits to individual health: in facilitating and amplifying authentic creative and cultural expression by and for marginalised communities, it also has the potential to reduce health inequalities on a much broader scale.

What if health funding followed wellness not illness?

This is the question that sits behind our Create Health strand - a series of test projects to develop and understand how to live well. Our experience in Gloucestershire and evidence drawn from practice across the UK and internationally, confirms that arts, creativity and culture are a fundamental part of living well.

Providing Creative Health in Gloucestershire during Lockdown: read the paper here

Gloucestershire Creative Health Consortium’s composed a paper documenting their responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent lockdown periods from 23rd March 2020 to 19th July 2021. This paper includes observations and experiences from consortium partner organisations, delivering artist facilitators and individuals who accessed Creative Health over this time and is available to download now.

Creative Age Programme in Gloucestershire

Creative Age is an arts-based, social community project for people living with dementia and their carers who still live independently. Participants take part in focused creative group sessions facilitated by experienced artists, exploring imaginatively with collective story-making, seated movement, dance, music, visual stimuli and poetry, with content driven by the participants’ interests. Before the pandemic, creative sessions were followed by socialising over tea and cake, hosted and coordinated by Bethesda Church and committed volunteers (who also support the artist-led sessions).

Opportunities available in Arts and Health

Featured

Calling Poets in GLOS: Poetry Cares care home residency

We are seeking a poet-in-residence to deliver six weekly sessions at a care home in Stroud as part of the Poetry Cares programme in July and August 2025.

The fee for the residency is £1,500 and the deadline for applications is midnight, Sunday 25th May

Stroud

Calling Poets in GLOS: Poetry Cares Training - FREE

Offering a free half day training for poets who want to acquire skills for working in Memory Cafes with people living with dementia on Tuesday 13th May 2-5pm.

The deadline for applications is this Sunday 27th April

Longlevens Library, Gloucester

Take a Moment

Art Journaling is a powerful tool for enhancing well-being. It supports self-expression, stress reduction, mindfulness and can boost confidence.Our friendly wellbeing tutor Donna Marshall will support you to learn all the creative techniques needed, whilst having fun and meeting other like-minded people.

Thursdays, 11-2pm

The Museum in the Park Stroud