Aesop/BOP Active Ingredients report
Aesop and BOP Consulting have published a new approach to helping practitioners and commissioners in the arts and social sectors to understand more about how arts interventions actually work.
"The Active Ingredients Project aims to deepen our understanding of the ways in which arts interventions in health and social contexts work - and to improve the ways these are designed and their impacts measured."
See the attached report
 Active Ingredients Report Sept 2018 Final low res.pdf

What does success look like for arts in criminal justice settings?

​This new paper from the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance is the result of roundtable discussions commissioned by Arts Council England, and attended by leading voices in arts and criminal justice.
It highlights the main themes that came out of these roundtables and outlines learning points and opportunities for development. It concludes with key messages and the seven next steps the NCJAA would like to see happen to move the agenda forward and achieve success for arts in criminal justice settings.
Read more or read the attached paper
 Success-in-Arts-in-Criminal-Justice_Sept2018.pdf

Activating Communities for Health: London, Warrington and Cardiff – 4, 9 & 23 October 2018
​Spice is hosting three events to explore community participation and resilience in the voluntary sector, in relation to public health strategies to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.
4 October, Activating Communities for Health (London), 5.30-8pm
We are hosting the first event in partnership with innovation foundation Nesta. Join us and a panel of public health, voluntary & private sector thought leaders. Book your place here
9 October, Activating Communities for Health (Warrington), 5.30-8pm
Join Spice and a panel of public health, voluntary & private sector thought leaders from the North West. Book your place here
23 October, Community Powered-Health: Supporting Better Outcomes for All Ages, Cardiff, 6-8pm
This event, held at National Assembly for Wales, will explore how the challenges of loneliness and isolation can be addressed through increasing participation in communities and building voluntary sector capacity and resilience. Welsh Government Minister for Children & Social Services, Huw Irranca-Davies, will introduce the discussion and formally launch a public consultation on the issues of loneliness and social isolation in Wales. Book your place here
Read more

Get more involved with NICE

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has set up new ways of taking part in their work to improve health and social care. There are several ways to get more involved, including registering as a stakeholder, joining a "Citizens Council", or becoming a "NICE Fellow". The new structures will give members of the public and organisations access to consultations, guidance and committees.
Read more

Complete Arts Professional’s survey to help improve equality and diversity
Arts Professional are conducting a survey of pay in the cultural sector with a view to creating a comprehensive evidence that supports efforts to increase equality and diversity in the sector.
Read more

Launch of MARCH network
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have announced £8-million-worth of funding to bring researchers, charities and other organisations together to address important mental health research questions. One of the grants – for £1.25m – has been awarded to Dr Daisy Fancourt at UCL. Her network, MARCH, will explore how social, cultural and community assets (including the arts, heritage sites, libraries, parks, allotments, volunteer associations and community groups) can enhance public mental health and wellbeing, prevent mental illness and support those living with mental health conditions.
For more information about the network, read here
To join the network for free and receive updates on new reports, events and funding opportunities visit www.surveymonkey.com/r/M-ARC-H
 

Unexpected Encounters: How museums nurture living and ageing well
The Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG)'s latest publication addresses the question of ageing at a time in which dominant perceptions of older age focus on decline, frailty, illness and dependence, linked to a medical model that pathologises and problematises ageing. The publication seeks to reverse the "deficit model" and focus instead on how museums can create more opportunities for people in the later stages of life to live in the moment, be actively engaged, have meaning and purpose and feel connected to their communities and the wider world.
"This publication emerges from the research project Encountering the Unexpected, an innovative two-year action research project that set out to challenge the (unconscious) assumptions that museums make about older people and find new approaches to engaging them with natural heritage collections. Initiated by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), at the University of Leicester, and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, run by the Museums Association, Encountering the Unexpected worked with six museums from the North West Natural History Museums Partnership, specialists in  ageing, the environment and nature connectedness, and 100 older people to develop the Unexpected Encounters Framework that can support museums to nurture older people to live and age well, reconnect with the natural world and encourage meaningful engagement in the present.
Complementing the publication is the project website Encountering the Unexpectedhttps://unexpectedencounters.le.ac.uk/ which draws on experiences and voices of all those involved in the project.
Unexpected Encounters is designed to raise questions and start conversations, to stimulate museum thinking and practice but most of all to engage with older people rights - a pressing social justice issue. We hope the publication and website will prompt more conversation and action."
Download the publication here or please find attached
 Unexpected Encounters s.pdf​
 

New government investment in social prescribing
The Minister of Health, Matt Hancock, has announced a £4.5m scheme to support social prescribing. The new fund has the potential to support arts on prescription schemes across the country.
Funding comes from the Health and Wellbeing Fund, itself part of a programme of government investment in the voluntary sector.

Read the full list of schemes supported by this fund here
Read more from Arts Professional
Read more from the Department of Health
 

National Lottery support for Give: Volunteering for Wellbeing
On behalf of the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, University College London (UCL) has received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to run Give: Volunteering for Wellbeing. Give is a collaboration with the Natural History Museum, Horniman Museum and Gardens, and Valence House that will make heritage more accessible to people experiencing health inequality. Working with our three partner organisations, new volunteering programmes will connect people and help open up hidden and unused collections to more people.
Read more

Creativity and Wellbeing: A National Celebration
For the past seven years, London Arts in Health Forum has hosted a festival of culture and health in London each June. From 2019, in collaboration with the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, Creativity and Wellbeing will become a national event with events happening right across England. We are hoping that people interested can start planning events now. The festival will take place from 10-16 June 2019 and is a great opportunity to showcase the work that is happening bringing together culture and health in one place. In London alone, this year over 300 events took place and we are hoping to get new events from every region. Anyone can submit an event via the dedicated website www.creativityandwellbeing.org.uk – here you can also see a short film which explains more about what the festival aims to achieve. We will be announcing more details in the coming months but start planning your events now – and perhaps even uploading details!