What's New
Event
Architectures of Care: Art, Aging and Health – IMMA Talks
5 July, 2025
Event
Topographical Journeys: New exhibition by Edwina Bracken at University Hospital Waterford
5 July, 2025
Opportunity
Call for Participants: Dance & Movement Study for People with Parkinson’s
5 July, 2025
News
The Arts Council appoints Catherine Abbott as Arts and Health Manager
28 June, 2025
News
Creative Ireland and Department of Health announce support for Live Music Performances in Residential Healthcare Settings
28 June, 2025
Event
Sustaining our Practice: Exploring Ritual for Self-Care and Cultivating Safe Spaces
27 June, 2025
Explore
Case Study
School of Generational Storytelling
School of Generational Storytelling was a year-long interdisciplinary project by artist Eamon O’Kane, supported by artist Chelsea Canavan. Commissioned by The Model and set within six care homes throughout Sligo, the project reflected on how we share knowledge across time, how creative practice can support wellbeing, and how relationships between individuals, disciplines, and institutions can be cared for through art. A significant outcome was a set of bespoke creative toolkits, which have been given to each of the care homes involved in the project.
Perspective
Six challenges facing arts and health
Alex Cothren and Tully Barnett from Flinders University talked to members of 22 arts and health organisations across the globe for their 2024 report, What does an arts and health organisation do? Across wide-ranging approaches to advancing this work, they discovered commonalities in the challenges facing these organisations. They summarise six key challenges and some of the solutions adopted by arts and health organisations to overcome them.
Case Study
Anam Beo – 20 years of creativity and care in the Midlands
Anam Beo is an arts collective that has delivered an arts and health programme for older people in care and community settings in Offaly since 2005. Anam Beo’s 20th Anniversary Project is a region-wide arts and health celebration in the Midlands showcasing two decades of groundbreaking work, where art and health intersect to tell powerful stories of resilience, connection, and change.
Resources
Strategy
Strategic Action Plan for Creative Arts and Health 2025
The first joint Strategic Action Plan for Arts and Health in Ireland has been developed in partnership by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport (Creative Ireland), the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland/Sláintecare), the HSE and the Arts Council. The Plan has six objectives: Policy, Evidence, Capacity Building, Delivery, Governance, and Communications & Engagement.
Guidance
National Arts in Hospitals Guidance (UK)
The first comprehensive resource for establishing and managing hospital arts programmes across the UK. An initiative of the National Arts in Hospitals Network, the guidance provides an evidence-based framework for embedding high-quality arts interventions in every hospital to improve patient care and staff wellbeing. Six essential areas are covered: Governance, Strategy, Evaluation, Collection Management, Art and Environment, Participatory Arts.
Framework
The Creative Health Impact Framework
The Creative Health Impact Framework has been created to support Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE), arts, and cultural organisations in London to plan for, evidence and communicate the value of their work to health partners in relation to health inequalities and health improvement. Key tools include a Creative Health Logic Model Template, a Health Outcomes and Impacts Guide, and a Creative Health Evaluation Framework.
