Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

Celebrate ART is a collaborative project developed by five partner organisations to showcase and celebrate the talent and creativity of young people aged 16–25 in and through the visual arts. This project used creative arts to support the mental health and well-being of young people, providing a safe space in which participants could express their thoughts and feelings using a variety of media.

For a large part of society, life in the 21st-century is characterized by digital events and content consumption in the digital environment, as well as regular anxiety, exhaustion, homogenous sensory experience, or routine. The Route of Well-being is an invitation to explore the art museum in a more personal way, enjoy time alone in the peaceful environment of art, and experience an alternative adventure of the senses, promoting mindfulness and mental well-being.
The Route of Well-being is available free of charge in the Latvian National Museum of Art mobile application in Latvian, Russian, and English. Audio stories guide the visitor through 12 exposition points of the permanent exposition, exploring such themes as friendship, courage, everyday life, loss, and the unknown. Each stop is accompanied by a thematic narration prepared by an art scientist, as well as tasks designed by an art therapist for self-exploration in the interaction with the art museum and the artworks. It takes about 60 minutes to complete the route, but the project developers invite enjoying it at a pace that is comfortable for the visitor, focusing on personal experience.
The audiovisual content was created in an interdisciplinary collaboration between the museum’s professionals, an art therapist, a music composer, an illustrator, and voice actors.

Paintings in Hospitals is the UK's leading national arts in health charity. Paintings in Hospitals aims to transform the UK's wellbeing by using world-class art to inspire better health for patients, carers, and communities. Art in doctor's surgeries can create welcoming waiting rooms and care spaces that ease anxiety and stress for both patients and staff. Risca Surgery: Artworks and Engagement Activities for GP Patients and Staff it was a project developed by Paintings in Hospitals. The surgery's modern building had large empty walls in the waiting areas and consultation rooms. Staff were particularly keen on using art to inspire better health and well-being throughout the surgery.

Several Dance Music Therapy sessions were conducted for care providers who are catering to the needs of "Restoring Smiles through Dance" participants, namely survivors
of sex trafficking. These sessions were designed to give care providers a basic understanding and experience of Dance Music Therapy, provide some tools for self-care and to capacitate them to use tools from DMT as part of trauma-sensitive responses to participants.

First training program in Italy concerning culture and health, the master Culture and Health is an executive master promoted by CCW School del CCW-Cultural Welfare Center in collaboration with DORS- Documentation Center for Health Promotion and COREP-Center for Ongoing Formation and aimed at professionals working in culture, social and healthcare fields, as well as to researchers.
In its first edition, started in December 2021 and ending in December 2022, it has involved 64 participants coming from 13 italian regions and two other nations. Participants involved are mainly women, with an average age of 41 years (more than 25% are under 40); more than half (58%) of participants come from the cultural sector, 17 persons work in social field, 8 in health field and just 1 person work in educational context.
The master has offered three training paths proposed in ideal sequence: the first devoted to building a scenario in the field according to the latest scientific researches and significant number of Italian and international best practices, the second to designing cultural welfare’s interventions and the third to designing and conducting these interventions on the filed aiming at health and social challenges. Participants could follow just the first or the second path or the whole course.
Consisting respectively in 60, 140 and 220 hours, the master has been delivered mostly online (through a weekly appointment on Zoom) but has provided in-person training moments during three weekends. Individual mentorship has been offered to the whole course’ participants, who developed an intersectoral group project work, discussed in the final graduation day.
The training proposal consisted in transmission of contents by the most influent experts in both culture and healthcare field, but also in the experimentation of different artistic practices; it has been taken in consideration and analyzed the potential for health of different cultural practices such as performing arts, visual arts, literature, music and architecture, with a particular regard to studying their impact on health at a community and systemic level.
Different training tools have been used, from frontal teaching to digital collaboration’s tools in order to make both online and in-person sessions collaborative; in particular, it has been used the slack platform to share contents, news and practices in view of developing a change-makers’ community able to operate also after the end of master.
Thanks to a great network work, the master benefits from the support of different partnerships, first of all with COREP-Centro Formazione Permanente dell’Università di Torino and DORS-Centro per la Promozione della Salute.
Social investors, such as Luigi Rovati foundation, contributed to creating a capacity building’s fund providing scholarship, making this proposal sustainable and rooted in the national territory; the overall investment exceeds 100.000 euros.

The organisation would like to improve their commitment in the benefit of the people they work with, implementing artistic and cultural activities as the main energy driver in their association. This is something that they already developed in their day to day and it is a very important part of their organizational structure and they are interested in finding funding and international connections for further development of their artistic and cultural activities.

Dance Well supports the professional development of dance artists and dance organizations that engage people living with Parkinson’s, or other movement disorders, with dance. The project expands their skills, competences and knowledge to widen the possibilities of becoming meaningful for the societies they live in, contributing with their innovative approaches to wellbeing and social cohesion.
The project is led by Comune di Bassano del Grappa, K3 -Tanzplan Hamburg, Le Gymnase CDCN Rubaix, La Briqueterie CDCN Vitry sur Seine, Tanec Praha, Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo and Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice. The project is supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
The objectives of the project are:
1. Developing and experimenting innovative dance practices, the implementation, transfer and dissemination of knowledge and experiences across European regions, to support the recovery of artists and dance organizations engaging people living with Parkinson’s and other mobility disorders, in light of the COVID-19 crisis;
2. Contribute to the wellbeing and social cohesion and to the development of the culture of dance and its impact in civic societies.
Activities include: intensive training for Dance Well Teachers, Dance Well classes, creation and presentation of dance and audio-visual works, research and analysis, dissemination events.

Restore project wants to tell about other possibilities of using theatre through European methodologies and approaches. Based on these premises, the project intends to promote cooperation and exchange of good practices at European level and intends to make use of the advantage of the European Union’s transparency and recognition tools to increase training opportunities and employment possibilities for professionals working in the field of Social Theatre. In particular, the specific objectives of the project are:
- to encourage the dissemination of Social and Community Theatre as an effective means of social inclusion for adults with learning difficulties
- to strengthen cooperation and facilitate the exchange of good practices in the field of informal education among the organisations taking part in the project
- to define a process of recognition and standardisation of the SOCIAL THEATRE OPERATOR profession at European Union level, a new professional figure declined in terms of knowledge, competences and skills

The main target groups of the project can be identified on different levels Non-profit organisations supporting different groups of disadvantaged adult learners working Professional adult educators and volunteers working in the field of Social and Community Theatre Groups at high risk of social exclusion and segregation such as migrants, disabled people, prisoners, ethnic minorities, former drug addicts, NEETs, etc. Artists working in the field of fragility, hardship, in contexts of social and cultural margins
The most important tangible results of the project are three Intellectual Outputs: 1) The description of the professional profile of the Social Theatre Operator according to EU standards; 2) The standardisation of Social Theatre Operator training; 3) Methodological indications for the validation, recognition and certification of the profession at national level. These three outcomes, which are closely interlinked, were promoted and disseminated through four Multiplier Events, including a major closing event in San Patrignano (Coriano, Italy), preceded by a preview in Rome. Four Joint Staff Training Events were organised in the associated countries to promote skills development and the sharing of good practices: Peer-to-Peer Learning Workshops (in Italy, Portugal and Poland) to share good practice in training and working with disadvantaged groups of adult learners; Pilot courses were organised to test and validate the training in some of the project partner countries, which were followed by a work-based learning experience, so that each student made a theatre workshop targeting different categories and groups of disadvantaged learners. A great closing event took place on 29 October 2022 at the Community of San Patrignano, one of the symbolic places of the whole project, preceded by a preview on 6 October 2022 at the University of Roma Tre, organised by Oltre le Parole onlus, leader of the European project.

ENO Breathe is an award-winning breathing and well-being programme developed specifically for people recovering from COVID-19, who are still suffering from breathlessness and associated anxiety. Delivered by ENO in collaboration with Imperial College Healthcare teams entirely online, the programme focuses on breathing re-training through singing. The aim of ENO Breathe is to empower patients in the management of breathlessness and anxiety post COVID-19 infection, by equipping them with the tools they need for self-management.
ENO Breathe is not a choir or singing group. It is a social prescribing (non-clinical) intervention that uses singing techniques to aid recovery from COVID-19. No prior experience or interest in singing is required to take part in ENO Breathe. ENO Breathe offers participants:
- An initial one-to-one online conversation with ENO Breathe session leaders to discuss participants’ suitability for the programme, explain what the programme involves, and answer any questions you might have.
- Six weekly group online workshop sessions, led by a professional singer from the ENO encourage participants to take part in exercises and activities specifically designed to support breathing control, providing tools for self-management of breath and anxiety.
- Access to bespoke online digital resources, designed to support participants between sessions. These include exercises, song sheets and audio and video materials, especially recorded by the ENO for participants on the programme.
- Access to post-programme weekly drop-in sessions, if participants wish to revisit exercises and songs in a friendly and relaxed environment with other participants who have also completed the programme.
Lullabies will be used as a way into exercises throughout the six weeks on the programme. Lullabies are expressly designed to calm and soothe, and have the benefit of being short, memorable and accessible to all.
The programme is available in England.

Creative Exchanges is a seven week accredited training course for activities coordinators in care settings and people from an arts background with an interest in working with older people. It trains participants to plan and facilitate arts activities for older people.