The arts in health sector reaches well beyond the hospital. Lara Ellen Dose looks at the field of community arts in health projects.
What do obesity, heart disease, breast cancer, teenage pregnancy, drug use, teen crime rates, community cohesion, social inclusion, and public health targets, all have in common? The arts!
Community arts in health projects both directly and indirectly impact on the lives of local citizens and the communities they make up. The arts have an ability to better communicate the messages local authorities and health authorities have been trying to share through leaflets and brochures ? and, what is more, they appear to have a longer-lasting impact. The arts, of course, are not a panacea; however, they do offer an innovative approach to improving health. Indeed, in these times of health targets and waiting lists, per-haps the most valuable asset that the arts in health provide is a different perspective.
In 1995, the town of Bentham in North Yorkshire engaged in an innovative community-consultation exercise. The aim was to identify local health needs in a community-led, rather than agency-led project. This exercise revealed: high levels of depression, loneliness and isolation across all age groups; a lack of opportunities for physical activity; in-creasing stress levels; poor diet and bullying. For a town with such a relatively small population, the scale and severity of the problems were high, but what was more troubling was that research had shown Bentham represents a microcosm of any UK neighbourhood, urban or rural.
?Looking Well? was established in 1997 as a result of this consultation and was the UK?s first arts-based Healthy Living Centre. It hasn?t shied away from the difficult issues facing their community. For instance, a project funded by North Yorkshire Health Authority involved artists and health workers engaging directly with teenagers to identify gaps in access to services and facilities for sexually active young people. This resulted in a series of cards providing information on sexual health and contraception and displaying images produced with the teenagers during arts workshops. This different approach to sexual health and primary care has helped the community of Bentham deliver on its health strategy.
Local government agendas are recognizing the impact the arts can have on health issues, which has led to local authorities and health authorities working in partnership. These bodies increasingly employ artists to deliver health-promotion messages and health education, and artists are increasingly asked to look at the health and well-being of communities and how the arts can contribute to solving problems. Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council led the way in collaborative practice by employing an arts in health facilitator on its Community Arts Team. Also in the West Midlands, the Strategic Health Authority and Arts Council England (ACE) fund a post that sits within the health authority.
Other partnerships have been forged within ACE that have helped define regional arts in health agendas. Two regions, North West and East Midlands, have officers whose posts are funded jointly by ACE and the Public Health department of the regional government office. In the South East, ACE has worked closely with the Health Development Agency (which on 1 April 2005 joined with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to become the new National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence).
Through its publication ?Ambitions for the Arts?, ACE committed itself to establishing an effective partnership with the Department of Health and looking regionally and locally at partnerships with key organisations already engaging in arts in health. Within ACE, the interest in arts in health grows from the regional officer straight to the top. Later this year, ACE will be publishing its arts in health strategy. The South-East and North-West ACE offices have already published arts in health advocacy documents, ?Arts, Creativity and Health in the South East? and ?Cultural Medicine.?
Yet despite the partnerships and innovative approaches to achieving public health targets, the community arts in health sector still has some way to go in establishing itself as a natural partner on health agendas. The Government has set ambitious Public Service Agreement targets around obesity, including halting the year-on-year increase in childhood obesity by 2010. The response has been a tried and tested answer: increase the number of opportunities for physical activity and sport. Through LEAP (Local Exercise Action Pilots) £2.6m will be invested, by the Department of Health, the Countryside Agency and Sport England to get people more active, but less than 5% of this has been allocated to arts activity.
What can we do to turn the tide and change minds? What arts in health does consistently well: invest this less than 5% wisely in projects that exemplify a quality process; result in a quality product; and improve the quality of health, as well as lives.
National Network for the Arts in Health is the national organisation for the arts in the health field.
t: 020 7261 1317; e: info@nnah.org.uk;
w: http://www.nnah.org.uk
?Arts, Creativity and Health in the South East? and ?Cultural Medicine? are available at http://www.artscouncil.org.uk.