Blog

Alex Evans, Artistic Director at Kazzum Arts in East London, explains the impact taking a trauma-informed approach has had on their arts work with children & young people, staff and artists, and throughout the organisation.

The benefits of the arts for mental health are increasingly recognised, but they need to be much better funded.

Lockdown has underlined the huge value of creativity particularly for those living in care homes. What would it require for all care homes to offer their residents access to relevant creative and cultural opportunities on a daily basis?

How artists, activists and creative organisations like Words of Colour are challenging racism in the arts sector and developing alternative structures that nurture the creative wellbeing and careers of artists of colour.

Sandra Griffiths, founder of The Red Earth Collective, shares her journey in arts and mental health and the work of Red Earth which uses the arts to start conversations about mental health with racialised and marginalised communities.

Many arts and mental health organisations combine the healing powers of creativity and nature. David Cutler rounds up a few here - from the quiet places in Manchester to some of the UK's most beautiful countryside.

Featured in our new report, this article by artist Dolly Sen is a powerful testimony to the toll of racism on mental health and a call to action to the arts world to address racism and lack of representation.

Theatre for Life was one of 87 organisations awarded a grant in our first Arts & Mental Health grants round last year.

This new Directory includes around 250 - mainly arts - organisations working in arts and mental health. David Cutler explains how it started and what it includes.

Margaret Busby is an editor, writer, and this year, the Chair of the Booker Prize judges. She was also interviewed in The Artist in Time, commissioned by the Foundation, which celebrates the lives and work of artists born before 1950.