5 January 2024
2023 saw the start and expansion of exciting partnerships for arts and mental heath between the Baring Foundation and the UK’s national arts councils.
Our partnership with Creative Scotland led to the award of £293,199 of support to 13 organisations across Scotland from its Participatory Arts & Mental Health Fund, helping to improve participatory arts and mental health provision in their local communities.
Awards include creative writing with people with mental health problems in Glasgow; exploring disability and mental health through film-arts in rural Scottish Borders; an innovative social prescribing programme empowering Caithness practitioners and residents; and connecting young people to artists for a collaborative and transformative experience in Stirling.
In Wales, the innovative Arts and Minds programme, jointly funded with the Arts Council of Wales, entered its third year. Arts and Minds supports the seven NHS health boards of Wales to develop their work with artists and arts organisations to provide creative opportunities for people with mental health problems.
Projects are diverse and include: Arts Boost in Hwyel Dda UHB, an arts in mental health programme for children and young people; and Swansea Bay UHB’s award-winning ‘Sharing Hope’ project which provides NHS staff who have experienced trauma and low mood with access to weekly, drop-in and one-to-one creative sessions during working hours. Sharing Hope won a Nursing Times Workforce Award for Best Staff Wellbeing Initiative 2023.
In October, Baring Foundation trustees awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland £300,000 over three years, match funded by ACNI. The programme has a number of broad objectives, including supporting more activity through small grants, reducing stigma and raising awareness among health professionals of the value of the arts for mental health. It will also have a focus on the mental health and wellbeing of artists.
Next May, the Baring Foundation and the Arts Council of England will jointly fund a symposium by young people’s mental health charity, 42nd Street in Manchester, on creativity and mental health for children and young people. This follows a successful jointly funded conference on our legacy programme, creative ageing, held in Newcastle on Tyne by Equal Arts in 2023.
David Cutler, Director of the Baring Foundation, says:
“As a relatively small funder, roughly the 150th largest foundation in the UK, it is important that we think hard about how to maximise the impact of our limited resources. These partnership grants with the national Arts Councils enable us to extend our impact in such a way that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, and we benefit hugely from their much greater expertise in their geographies. In all of these partnerships, we look forward to more collaboration for arts and mental health in 2024!”
Image: Swansea Bay’s award-winning staff wellbeing programme, Sharing Hope.