The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has awarded Willis Newson its 2010 award for ‘outstanding contributions to arts and health practice’ for the REACH initiative. An initiative that Take Art has been working with for over a year.
REACH (2006-2010) was an Arts Council England South West initiative which brought together 17 collaborating health, community and arts partners, 11 individual artists and 12 funders. Four project partnerships were established in Bristol, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, each with a project team and support and overall project management from Willis Newson.
The initiative encouraged arts organisations and public health providers to work in partnership in tackling health inequalities in local communities.
The partners involved in REACH were Bristol: Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, Willis Newson, Bristol and Avon Chinese Women’s Group, Dhek Bhal, University of West of England, NHS Bristol; Devon: Devon Partnership NHS Trust, NHS Devon, Aune Head Arts, Villages in Action; Dorset: Bridport Medical Centre, Bridport Arts Centre, NHS Dorset, Dorset Mental Health Forum; Somerset: NHS Somerset, Take Art, Community Health International. The project was supported at a regional level by Arts & Health South West and NHS South West.
Stephen Clift, chair of the judges, said the awards committee was particularly impressed by “the clear focus on addressing health inequalities, the geographical reach of the project, the excellent partnership work involved, the variety of creative art forms drawn upon and the clear commitment to monitoring and evaluation.”
REACH encouraged arts organisations and public health providers to work in partnership to tackle health inequalities in local communities. Health partners identified health inequalities and hard to reach groups and arts organisations devised arts based projects to deliver health benefits by giving people opportunities to be creative, increasing self-esteem and communication skills and improving wellbeing and confidence. REACH was unusual in aiming to empower health partners to lead the projects in order to embed arts into health practice.At a regional level the partners have shared experiences and learning and an external evaluation has considered the challenges and successes of partnership delivery of arts and health projects. Three critical success factors were emphasised in this: the need for joint working and the development of collaborative approaches; the need for a good “fit” with existing commissioning opportunities; and a requirement for thinking “outside the box” and addressing health issues in a creative and imaginative way. Each individual partnership project was also the subject of a stand-alone service evaluation.
For more information on Willis Newson, please contact Karen Gray, Marketing and Development Manager: tel: 0117 924 7617; email: karen@willisnewson.co.uk.
For more information on REACH please contact Alex Coulter, Director of Arts & Health South West on alex@ahsw.org.uk or telephone 07973345967