Abstract
Culture Cures is an annual cultural investment scheme overseen by Wakefield Council’s Culture team in conjunction with the Health Improvement team, which looks to support arts and cultural projects that can support the delivery of health and wellbeing outcomes. Arts and culture organisations within the Wakefield area are invited to bid competitively for funding to provide projects that use creativity to address specific issues within the local community. The successful arts organisations in 2017 were: CoActive; Cossins Music School; The Hepworth Wakefield; One To One Development Trust; Stride Theatre; and the Theatre Royal Wakefield.
For the 2017-18 programme, the decision was taken to focus Culture Cures on supporting creative activities in three specific areas in the Wakefield district facing particular wellbeing challenges: Airedale, Lupset, and Ryhill and Havercroft. The programme of activities ran from September 2017 to April 2018, and the change in focus this year, working in the three designated areas, brought with it interesting new challenges, but also rich opportunities, in establishing projects that have the potential to generate longer-term benefits in those areas.
Of particular relevance this year was that Culture Cures was running in the wake of the publication, in July 2017, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPGAHW) Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing report on arts and health activity across the United Kingdom. As a result, the findings and recommendations of the final Culture Cures evaluation were contextualised within the broader framework of the Creative Health findings. The final report evaluated the individual projects using the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing, drew general conclusions on the effectiveness of the programme as a whole, and made fourteen recommendations. A documentary about the Culture Cures activities in 2017-18, produced by One To One Development Trust, was premiered in Wakefield in June 2018 and can be watched at the following link. The link also contains an introductory summary of the report for free download:
https://onetoonedevelopment.org/culture-cures/
The evaluation research findings and recommendations have already begun to inform Wakefield MDC approaches to future iterations of Culture Cures.
For the 2017-18 programme, the decision was taken to focus Culture Cures on supporting creative activities in three specific areas in the Wakefield district facing particular wellbeing challenges: Airedale, Lupset, and Ryhill and Havercroft. The programme of activities ran from September 2017 to April 2018, and the change in focus this year, working in the three designated areas, brought with it interesting new challenges, but also rich opportunities, in establishing projects that have the potential to generate longer-term benefits in those areas.
Of particular relevance this year was that Culture Cures was running in the wake of the publication, in July 2017, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPGAHW) Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing report on arts and health activity across the United Kingdom. As a result, the findings and recommendations of the final Culture Cures evaluation were contextualised within the broader framework of the Creative Health findings. The final report evaluated the individual projects using the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing, drew general conclusions on the effectiveness of the programme as a whole, and made fourteen recommendations. A documentary about the Culture Cures activities in 2017-18, produced by One To One Development Trust, was premiered in Wakefield in June 2018 and can be watched at the following link. The link also contains an introductory summary of the report for free download:
https://onetoonedevelopment.org/culture-cures/
The evaluation research findings and recommendations have already begun to inform Wakefield MDC approaches to future iterations of Culture Cures.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Edge Hill University |
| Commissioning body | Wakefield Council |
| Number of pages | 124 |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2018 |
Keywords
- arts
- culture cures
- health and wellbeing