Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

Generate a cultural product that improves the emotional care of patients in the pediatric intensive care unit: The work of the nursing staff who looks after the children in the pediatric ICU extends the strictly nursing work. Without any specific education in this field, they have to play the role of child and family psychologists, of teachers who help the children learn about their bodies and health, of clowns who entertain them and make them laugh when they are going through hard times and even of mothers and fathers when their parents are absent. This situation of emotional stress in a hospitalised child could be solved with additional resources, but unfortunately the crisis or the path taken by medical institutions has not managed to prioritize this issue. In practice, and in absence of specialized psychological staff, the mental health aspects and emotional care of the ill children and their families are managed by the nursing staff. This initiative explores how a cultural product can help dealing with this situation. The nurses, the patrons of the initiative have already identified the need for a narrative-based physical object that helps them manage the emotions and feelings of hospitalised children.

Anne-Marth Hogewoning and photographer Cigdem Yuksul taught people to open up to dementia. They made the photo series Alzheimer Whispering from the stories they heard and saw, they made special portraits of and with people with dementia. Together with Adelheid, Anne-Marth Hogewoning Cigdem Yuksul developed the Alzheimer Whispering method and started their project of the same name. For the project they went out with people with dementia, their sons, daughters and grandchildren. They listen to their stories and they taught people to be open to dementia, to improvise and let go of shyness. Cigdem Yuksul captured the stories with her camera. The result is the beautiful photo series Alzheimer Whispering.

A model for low threshold and inclusive art activities is created in project Art, Inclusion and Social Innovations. Development work is based on co-creation together with participants (youth) and professionals from different sectors. In addition a model for increased employment of artists and creative professionals is built during the course of the project. Both models and other project results are to be implemented in communal and regional service structures in Pirkanmaa region.
Project Art, Inclusion and Social Innovations plans and organizes art interventions together with young unemployed people (NEET and others under 30), art professionals and other cross-sectorial service providers. As a result the young participants’ wellbeing, inclusion and working and functional capability are enhanced. New routes towards personal empowerment, employment, studies and further paths are created.
The project is divided into three phases, first phase being the piloting of the operating models. The models and best practices will then be re-tested, expanded and later embedded in the art, culture and wellbeing services for the young unemployed persons in Pirkanmaa region.
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare is the coordinator in the project and provides the project structure with the knowledge on inclusion of the unemployed and other vulnerable groups. The Cultural Center PiiPoo and City of Tampere are the partnering organizations and executing expert bodies of the project. The project is funded from the European Social Fund’s priority axis of social inclusion.

Sansusī Well-being Residency Program is for socially engaged contemporary artists. This program welcomes artists who seek to shift the artist and audience relationships and power models in social institutions by involving marginalized groups in the creation process. Those target groups are children from the isolated, rural areas, elderly living alone in remote areas, as well as clients and staff of the Psychoneurological clinic, elderly house, and social center of Aknīste. Sansusī Well-being Residency was created In 2018 to promote the dialogue between art and society and promote the power of art as a tool for society's well-being. Artists in residency develop inclusive art projects and use arts-based methods with local social and healthcare organizations.
Sansusī Well-being Residency Program fosters public awareness about the various forms of contemporary art, involving target groups and the local community in a larger sense as well in creative processes as in work in progress presentations and concerts. The Program contributes to the well-being of the involved target groups by providing them with opportunities of meaningful dialogue and exchange among themselves and with the involved artists.
Sansusī Well-being Residences are a program implemented by the association "Sansusī" in Jēkabpils district Susēj, where contemporary art is created in cooperation with local youth and seniors, the Aknīste Health and Social Care Center and the Psychoneurological Hospital.

Stage: se is an art and culture project that creates opportunities for children and young people with severe intellectual disabilities. Through imagination, creativity and magic, the project creates opportunities for inspiration, joy and play. The project period is 2017-2020 during which Hudiksvall Municipality, Glada Hudik Theater's supporter club, Folkteatern Gävleborg, Riksteatern Barn och Unga and Hälsinglands Museum collaborate.

Live Music in Care is a research enquiry that emerged from the campaign ‘A Choir in Every Care Home’, supported by 35 national organisations in the social care and arts sectors. From 2015-2017, they surveyed the many creative ways that older people engage with music, and explored why the majority of care homes do not regularly offer this opportunity. They found a wealth of evidence supporting the use of music for older people, particularly for those living with dementia. The also found there was limited evidence available about how music programmes can impact on a whole care home. So, between 2017-2018, Live Music Now and the University of Winchester worked in partnership with MHA (Methodist Homes) and The Orders of St John Care Trust to investigate the impact of music on residents, staff and the whole care home environment.
This project sought to evaluate an intervention comprising an 11-session interactive weekly music programme, including training for staff, in five care homes in the UK.
The programme was delivered by Live Music Now. The programme focussed on singing and the use of voice, led by pairs of trained professional musicians for 45 minutes
each week. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate this programme.

The Lullaby Project, now called ‘Sing our Story’, is a musical intervention for preschool children 2-4 years old living in areas of sociology-economic disadvantage. The programme, funded by Youth Music and centred on UK nurseries and Children’s Centres, is aimed at children needing particular psycho/social/educational support. Each child and carer is gently interviewed about the things that matter to the child and the collected responses are woven into a bespoke, culturally appropriate song and chorus. The song is shared with child and carer and eventually taught to the chid’s nursery class.

City of London Sinfonia is a London based orchestra, which has a year-round participation programme of ‘in-the-moment’ and creative music-making projects with professional musicians at its heart. This includes a residency at the Bethlem and Maudsley psychiatric hospital school.
City of London Sinfonia musicians have been engaging in creative music making projects with students and staff at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School for the past years. The young people are all service users at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and have a range of severe psychiatric and mental health diagnoses. In the last year a major post-doctoral research programme with King’s College London has begun around the project.

Avant Cymru is a collective of artists who work in the Valleys of South Wales producing theatre and hip-hop theatre with young people. They also seek to provide professional pathways and local opportunities for young people to enter the arts as a career. They had two projects for people with mental health: 1) break dance and hip-hop theatre where their focus on hip hop theatre for young people has grown organically as young people have seen what they do and approached them wanting to get involved and 2)theatre and supporting young writers: Shakespeare on the Mountain Top. Their work grew out of the requests of young people and in response to them wanting to improve their health
and well-being.

Since 2021, Nordmaling's cultural school is part of a new Heritage Fund project where the coordinator is the Cultural Schools Council. Development projects aim to prevent mental illness in young people by using culture as a resource. The project involves 11 cultural and music schools in Västerbotten as well as the culture and music schools in Södermanland and Norrbotten. Within the framework of the project, the cultural school in Nordmaling will work for a more active role in the prevention of mental illness among young people. The cultural school will have close contact with students, and recommend young people with mental illness to participate in the cultural school's activities.