University teams up with key local partners for Creative Health project
The National Creative Health Hub at the University of Huddersfield has been awarded nearly £500k of funding by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to bring partners together from across the region to mobilise the infrastructure needed to grow and embed Creative Health in local neighbourhoods and communities.
This builds on the December 2023 announcement by Mayor Tracy Brabin and the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board for a Creative Health System for West Yorkshire.
The programme will be delivered through a collaborative hub-and-spoke approach, working alongside local partners in each district of the region.
A team of academic researchers from the university, led by Professor Rowan Bailey, have been working across Bradford and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield to support and develop a collaborative partnership. This spans local authorities, the NHS, universities, voluntary and community organisations, cultural and creative organisations and regional networks.
The partners will work to ensure creative health is accessible to everyone, easy to connect with, and embedded within ongoing approaches to prevention, wellbeing and tackling health inequalities.
Professor Rowan Bailey, Director of the National Creative Health Hub explains, “This approach provides regional coordination and shared learning across Creative Health, while ensuring delivery remains responsive to the strengths, needs and lived experiences of each place. We are looking forward to working with communities across West Yorkshire to help make Creative Health accessible in local neighbourhoods."
The work also aligns closely with the University of Huddersfield’s National Health Innovation Campus (NHIC) and the growing creative collaborations between the Schools of Arts and Humanities, Human and Health Sciences, and the Business School.
By bringing together expertise in creative and cultural practice, health and social care, research, evaluation, and innovation, the programme supports system-level development that creates stronger conditions of opportunity for Creative Health to flourish in place.
Professor Liz Towns-Andrews, Regional and Business Lead for NHIC, adds, “Through this integrated approach, the University is helping to build the skills, infrastructure and partnerships needed to embed Creative Health within regional health, wellbeing and economic systems for the long term.”
What is Creative Health?
Creative Health recognises the value of creative and cultural activities in supporting people to live healthier, happier and more connected lives.
This can include:
- music, drama, visual arts, performance and crafts; visiting heritage and museums;
- outdoor and nature-based activity including walking, gardening and swimming;
- opportunities for confidence building, skills development, physical activity and reducing social isolation.
The programme brings together a set of connected schemes of collaborative work in the field of Creative Health: workforce development, funding and commissioning, regional network building, and the co-creation of a West Yorkshire Creative Health Strategy. Alongside this, it will map and support the development of Creative Health activity across the region, making opportunities more visible, improving access to participation and raising awareness of the benefits Creative Health can bring to people’s lives.
A core focus of the programme is to build the foundations for Creative Health to thrive over the long term. This includes strengthening partnerships, developing skills and workforce capacity, improving coordination and referral routes, and building a stronger evidence base to demonstrate the social and economic value of creative health alongside health outcomes.
The project will actively invite Creative Health providers, practitioners and organisations across West Yorkshire to get involved, through the development of a regional Creative Health Network.
This network will support collaboration, shared learning and co-creation, and will play a key role in shaping a West Yorkshire Creative Health Strategy that is informed by people’s lived experiences and creative health practice on the ground.
For further details of the work of this project and the National Creative Health Hub, see: Creative Health Hub - University of Huddersfield and sign up to mailing list and newsletter here: Creative Health HUB. To make enquiries, please email: creativehealthhub@hud.ac.uk
University of Huddersfield academics on the project:
Professor Liz Towns-Andrews, Dr Nic Stenberg, Dr Stacey Durham, Dr Emma Andrews.
Key consortium partners include:
Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network; NHS partners across West Yorkshire; the University of Huddersfield; the University of Leeds; the University of Bradford; local authorities in Bradford and Craven, Wakefield, Kirklees, Leeds and Calderdale; the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance; hoot Creative Arts; Forum Central and Bradford Culture Company.