Creative Health in Education
At Fullscope, we deliver projects, carry out research and work closely with other organisations to make the important changes that we believe are needed to better support children and young people’s mental health. Over the first quarter of 2024 we will share stories from some of our primary school partners. Each has worked with Fullscope partner Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (CCI), to develop Creative Health initiatives as part of their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing, using CCI’s evidenced based arts-in-nature practice Artscaping. This first blog provides an introduction to Fullscope’s approach to Creative Health.
What is Creative Health?
‘Active engagement with the arts and culture, whether through our own creative practice or through our enjoyment of the creative practice of others, is beneficial for the health and wellbeing of us all.’ National Centre for Creative Health
Borrowing the National Centre for Creative Health’s definition, we define Creative Health as creative approaches and activities that have benefits for our health and wellbeing. An ever-strengthening body of research, well summarised in the Centre’s recent review evidences that engaging with creativity and culture improves mental health and wellbeing and can be used in the prevention, treatment, management and recovery of physical and health conditions.
Fullscope’s Creative Health Journey
Fullscope's initial Creative Health programme was developed in response to the Covid 19 Pandemic. It initiated new collaborations and models of delivery that enabled a successful consortium-based approach to championing arts and health as an effective, joint approach to wellbeing.
This work demonstrated to Fullscope the crucial role Creative Health could play in prevention and early intervention of mental health that is necessary given the year on year rise of mental health disorders in children and people. Our current focus for our Creative Health work is developing universal preventative models with schools.
Arts in Nature – a Universal Creative Health Offer
‘Providing time and space early on for children to reconnect (or connect for the first time) with nature and art is the actual ‘medicine’ that’s required. Giving children a fresh start, with the adults seeing them a-new with talents that were previously under the surface, is huge. Think of what could be achieved if more children worked with CCI! And think of the money that could potentially be saved in staff time, paediatrician referrals, expensive therapy.’ - Paula Ayliffe, Co-Headteacher, Mayfield Primary School
There is an extensive and growing evidence base making the case for the importance of creative time, and time spent in nature for mental health. We have been working with CCI to understand how an established arts in nature programme, Artscaping, could be an integral part of every child’s school experience to foster good health and wellbeing. Aligned to our strategic priorities, we see Artscaping as a Creative Health intervention that has the potential to reduce mental health inequalities in the following ways:
Schools can offer universal access to creative activity that has the potential to reduce inequalities in both access to arts, culture and health outcomes
Schools can facilitate equity of access to nature, thereby playing a crucial role in addressing health inequities.
Artscaping takes place outdoors, and encourages slowing down and allowing time for nature connectedness; it prioritises children’s creativity and thinking, with pro-active behaviours that are good for our health and our planet developed in parallel.
Working alongside Public Health, mental health partners and researchers from University College London and Anglia Ruskin University, we are developing a growing evidence-base for this approach to be an integral part of whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This work and the evidence of its impact has been featured as a best practice case study by the Centre for Creative Health.
In this blog series we will share the varied ways schools have integrated Artscaping into their school approaches to support wellbeing for children and young people.