Blog

We are delighted to be awarding 87 new grants this week to organisations working in arts and mental health. Here the Director of the Foundation and of our Arts Programme explains the thinking behind the awards we have made.

Practitioner wellbeing in the arts & (mental) health field has rightly become a hot topic, with the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods making it only more so. We asked a few organisations what support they offer or would like to offer.

Rachel Parker of The Reader in Liverpool explains how they use shared reading of great literature to help improve mental health and resilience in settings including prisons, secure mental health units and the community.

Oakleaf are a mental health charity in Guildford, Surrey, offering creative workshops alongside other services to people recovering from mental ill-health.

Our new report features 17 great organisations who work around arts and mental health with children and young people. Here are some of the observations we drew from reading and talking to them about their work.

Project eARTh is a rural arts and mental health programme run by High Peak Community Arts, which champions collective working to create both indoor and outdoor artworks for the community.

With the release this month of the Artist in Time, commissioned by the Baring Foundation, Chris Fite-Wassilak talks about the making of the book and the perspectives it provided.

Arts and health projects are vital in helping people cope and recover from the pandemic and its consequences - but the DCMS rescue package - welcome though it is - may not reach the small organisations and artists who do this work.

ARC is a leading arts and mental health organisation which has for a number of years hosted student social workers as part of its creative programmes. Its Artistic Director, Jacqui Wood, explains.

Tips for applying to the COVID-19 legal action fund which supports charities to use legal action to help protect communities worst affected by the pandemic.