Healthcare Context
185 results
Case Studies (39 results)
Case Studies
Cut from the Same Cloth
Cut from the Same Cloth is a project initiated by University College Dublin Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Research, seeking to build trust and foster new connections between women and girls from minority communities in Ireland and biomedical health researchers. Stories and experiences from a series of gatherings exploring 'the fabric of our lives' have culminated in a touring exhibition by artist and tapestry weaver Lorna Donlon.
Case Studies
Cavan Singers – Celebrating Forty Years of Community Singing
Cavan Singers began life as a community choir on Valentine's Day 1984. To celebrate our 40 years of singing together, we conducted an informal survey of members to find out what it means to be part of a community choir. What emerged was a triad of interconnected themes - Music, Community and Self - and a realisation that singing together over a sustained period was having a profound effect on our individual mental and emotional wellbeing.
Case Studies
The Gift of Connection for Christmas by Mike Hanrahan & Westport Men’s Shed
When Irish Hospice Foundation and Irish Men’s Sheds invited musician Mike Hanrahan to join forces with Westport Men’s Shed, the brief was simple. Get everyone sharing favourite songs and talking about experiences of grief and loss. What resulted took everyone’s breath away. A creative collaboration that produced a gorgeous song ‘Wishing You Were Here’ for Christmas 2023 that’s still going strong.
Case Studies
Compassionate Culture Networks Across Munster
Irish Hospice Foundation have been developing a Compassionate Culture Network across Ireland since 2021. These are spaces facilitated by artists for people to gently explore loss and how compassion connects through a variety of creative practices. Initially supported by Creative Ireland, additional support from Rethink Ireland’s Impact Fund for Munster enabled expansion across Munster in 2023.
Case Studies
Making My Mark
Making My Mark is a pilot art programme with renal dialysis patients at the BBraun Wellstone Wexford Renal Care Centre. Delivered by artist Kate Murphy, the programme ran from February to June 2024, and culminated in a public exhibition of patient artwork.
Case Studies
The Vitruvian: Uncovering The Layers Of Cancer
Artist Vincent Devine, cancer researchers at UCD Conway Institute, and patient partners with a lived experience of cancer worked collaboratively to integrate art and science. From these conversations, Devine created a powerful visual representation that offers a glimpse into the journey of cancer, from its molecular origins to its profound effects on an individual’s wellbeing.
Case Studies
A Bright Light
A Bright Light was a collaborative book project with children of families who foster, about their experiences of having foster siblings. The project was a partnership between Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership and the Foster Care Resource Service Sligo, Leitrim, and West Cavan Area. Creative sessions with children and young people from families who foster took place in 2022 in Sligo.
Case Studies
Storytelling through Weaving
The Storytelling through Weaving project was designed and delivered by wellbeing artist Lucy Hyland and participants from Headway in Cork, a support service for people affected by stroke and Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). Participants created individual weaves and the project culminated in a shared woven wall hanging as a visual account of their recovery from ABI and stroke.
Case Studies
Creative Carers in West Cork
Creative Carers is a community-based strand of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme in West Cork, initiated in 2022. The programme creates access to engage with the arts for and with family carers, taking place at carers' homes, in arts spaces and in community settings across the region.
Case Studies
Music Exploration Programme at Wexford Mental Health Association
Exploring the role of music in mental health recovery for individuals attending community mental health services and those in residential settings in County Wexford, the programme is funded as part of the Arts Ability Programme, a partnership with the HSE Mental Health Services and Wexford County Council Arts Department.
Case Studies
I brought the dream of flying
I brought the dream of flying was an exhibition by artists Corina Duyn and Caroline Schofield which featured work created in response to Corina’s move into full-time nursing home care. Working together for 18 months, the artists developed a new methodology which enabled Corina to continue making art in the face of her increasing disability.
Case Studies
Reels on Wheels
Reels on Wheels is an inclusive adaptive Irish céilí dance programme developed by and for wheelchair users in collaboration with Munster Academy of Dance, during a pilot feasibility project in Limerick. The programme now runs weekly in the Irish Wheelchair Association’s Dunraven Centre, Limerick.
Case Studies
Helium Arts Teen Remote Programme
During the pandemic Helium Arts' remote pilot programme offered connection and creative engagement for teenagers with long-term health conditions across Ireland who were more isolated than usual. Helium’s vision is for a long-term programme that reaches teenagers living rurally across Ireland.
Case Studies
Training Notes – Music & Health Training in Ireland
Training Notes is a training initiative of Kids Classics, Ireland's leading music in healthcare organisation. Kids Classics has developed a framework of bespoke training courses which includes introductory workshops, supervised apprenticeships and team mentoring.
Case Studies
Art and hope in a time of Covid
Gairdín Mhuire is a day care centre for older people located in Dingle. Úna Ní Shé has worked there as a visual artist since 2003. Úna describes her evolving response as an artist to the closure of Gairdín Mhuire to all normal activities in March 2020.
Case Studies
Summer Stars online art programme
Teenagers with cystic fibrosis face barriers when it comes to connecting and conversing with each other: due to cross-infection issues, they cannot be in the same physical space. Helium Arts established the Summer Stars online art programme in spring 2019 to support these connections and create a space for the development of creative skills.
Case Studies
Cúram
Cúram is a four person exhibition by artists Daniel Chester, Cherry Dowling, Amy McGovern and Stephen Rennicks. The artists, based in the environs of County Sligo, had artistic encounters within the realm of healthcare for older people. They were invited to make work responding to that experience.
Case Studies
The Songbirds
The Songbirds is a piece of theatre researched and written by playwright Guy Le Jeune examining the experiences of people living with dementia, and their primary carers.
Case Studies
Irish Aphasia Theatre
Irish Aphasia Theatre is a socially engaged theatre and arts and health company working in professional theatre, community and health settings. IAT works with participants who have aphasia and/or acquired brain injuries related to ageing conditions and other brain traumas.
Case Studies
Orchard Stories: A Bealtaine Artist Residency
Visual artist Joanna Hopkins was awarded the inaugural Bealtaine Artist in Residence in a Care Setting in 2017. Over four months, Joanna collaborated with residents of Orchard Day Care Centre in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, using the sensory garden as both a starting point for conversation and as a source for artmaking.
Case Studies
‘Got It?’
What is the best way to clearly communicate necessary healthcare information? 'Got It?' is a health literacy project by collaborative artists Rowena Keaveny and Julie Spollen, created in partnership with Anam Beo arts and health organisation and Offaly’s Public Participation Network.
Case Studies
110 Skibbereen Girls
In 2018, artist Toma McCullim worked with the residents, staff and visitors of Skibbereen Hospital Campus on a collaborative art project to create a bronze public sculpture for the Hospital Grounds.
Case Studies
Open Theatre Practice
Open Theatre Practice was established in 2017 by Outlandish Theatre Platform, theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital. Participants from diverse communities in Dublin 8, the hospital community, performing arts colleagues and other theatre practitioners are invited to take part in the process of making new work in response to a theme.
Case Studies
Mother Ireland
Mother Ireland is a socially engaged research and performance project led by theatre artists Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly of Outlandish Theatre Platform in collaboration with the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, Dublin. The project examines Ireland’s constitution against lived intersectional experiences of residents of Dublin 8, in relation to housing, migration and birthing.
Case Studies
Pop Up Picnic
Pop Up Picnic is an immersive, multi-sensory performance project for young children with complex needs developed and produced by Helium Arts. Created in partnership with the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation in 2016 for families in the home, the project has now being adapted for public audiences.
Case Studies
Illuminating Childbirth
This project is an innovative research initiative entitled: 'Illuminating childbirth experiences of women attending a midwife-led service via visual art works - An interpretive phenomenological study.'
Case Studies
Red Lead Film Group
Red Lead Film Group is a film project based in Waterford City with artist Philip Cullen and men with acquired brain injury.
Case Studies
The New Normal
The New Normal is a collaborative community arts and health project exploring the lived experience of breast cancer through a visual arts lens. The project took place from 2016 to 2017 with artist John Conway and breast cancer survivors.
Case Studies
The Creative Well – Phase II
The Creative Well is a visual arts and health programme that has developed from its 2011 pilot to provide space and place for arts participation in many forms for all in Co. Kildare. The programme is an ongoing partnership between KCC Arts Service, Kildare’s Arts and Wellbeing Specialist Carolann Courtney, the HSE Adult Mental Health Services and visual artists Dominic Thorpe and Emma Finucane.
Case Studies
Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing
Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing in Waterford celebrates the health benefits of participation in the arts and features a programme of free, fun, inventive and sociable arts events for all ages, across all artforms.
Case Studies
Kicking the Bucket
Sinead Dinneen and Katie Verling are friends and arts practitioners curious about illness and death. We have experienced life-threatening cancers and live with ongoing medical problems. We developed Kicking the Bucket as a creative, humorous and thought-provoking participatory project on illness, dying, death and grief based on our personal experiences.
Case Studies
Connections
Connections is a dance project facilitated by choreographer Inma Pavon, and interactive artist Trevor Furlong, in collaboration with Headway Cork.
Case Studies
Journeys
Visual artist Sharon Dipity was commissioned by the HSE Cork Arts and Health Programme in 2014 to create site-specific artwork for Blackrock Hall Primary Care Centre in Cork following a competitive tendering process.
Case Studies
The Creative Check Up
The Creative Check Up is an interactive and participatory installation and performative event which has taken place in a variety of arts and health settings in Dublin since being established in early 2014.
Case Studies
Cut Throat
Cut Throat was the result of a two-year Research Masters in NCAD undertaken by artist Rachel Tynan which aimed to visualise living with long-term illness. The final production of Cut Throat manifested in an exhibition, performance and series of talks at The Lab in Dublin.
Case Studies
Creative Writing at Tallaght Hospital
In 2013 Michael McCarthy was Writer in Residence at Tallaght University Hospital. During his residency he facilitated three hospital groups: for people with chronic pain, an outpatient group for older people, and a creative writing course for staff members of the hospital. Michael also created his own original work in response to his residency in the stroke service.
Case Studies
Encounters, Triskel@St.Finbarr’s
Encounters was a collaboration between Triskel Arts Centre and St. Finbarr’s Hospital, a multidisciplinary hospital site. The collaboration formed part of the arts and health strand of Cork EU Capital of Culture 2005.
Case Studies
Hearth
Hearth is a Mayo based arts programme for older people living in their own homes.
Case Studies
Liminality
Liminality is an art project by Ciara McMahon and the Living Gift Transplant Support Group that manifested at the NCAD Gallery Dublin in February 2011.
Directory (10 results)
Directory
Irish Hospice Foundation
The Irish Hospice Foundation's Arts and Cultural Engagement programme was initiated in 2020 with support from The Creative Ireland programme.
Directory
Réalta, National Resource Organisation for Arts and Health
Réalta was established in 2023 as the national resource organisation dedicated to developing arts and health in Ireland, founded on decades of pioneering arts and health practice as Waterford Healing Arts Trust (established 1993) and the encyclopaedic knowledge gathered under artsandhealth.ie (established 2011).
Directory
Waterford Healing Arts
Waterford Healing Arts is Ireland’s longest established arts and health organisation, founded in 1993 at University Hospital Waterford (UHW).
Directory
Hearth
Hearth is a Mayo based arts programme for older people living in their own homes.
Directory
Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality is an award-winning international organisation dedicated to the promotion, study and practice of the arts for equality, human rights and diversity.
Directory
National Gallery of Ireland
The National Gallery of Ireland’s Arts & Health programming recognizes the significant health benefits that engagement with creative practices can have for our community at large, enhancing individual wellbeing while also developing social cohesion.
Directory
Anam Beo
Anam Beo is an independent arts organisation that delivers an Arts-in-Health Programme in Offaly.
Directory
Arts Ability
Arts Ability is an inclusive, participatory arts programme which celebrates the artistic and creative imagination of people who experience mental health problems and/or intellectual, physical or sensory disabilities.
Directory
Helium Arts
Helium Arts: • supports a dynamic, child-friendly, family centred, holistic approach to children’s medical provision, within community, primary, and acute healthcare contexts.
Directory
Music & Health Ireland
Music & Health Ireland (formerly Kids Classics) is a not for profit limited company that delivers high quality professional music workshops, performances and music participation opportunities in the heart of healthcare, education and community settings nationally regardless of a person’s social, economic or medical circumstance.
Perspectives (18 results)
Perspectives
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 core characteristics that connect the field and 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.
Perspectives
Finding my ‘guth’: The Lump vs the Irish Language
Irish surgeon Dr Denis Burkitt discovered Burkitt's lymphoma. Belfast filmmaker Éanna Mac Cana was treated for this cancer when he was 19 years old. His unique documentary feature film, Burkitt, combines his personal experiences as an inpatient with an exploration of the life and work of Dr Burkitt. Éanna discusses how he began re-learning the Irish language while making Burkitt and how finding his ‘guth’ (voice) created an environment for healing.
Perspectives
Strange Gifts: Community and Connection in Illness and Performance
When theatre maker Jenny Macdonald was recovering from breast cancer, she began creating a play inspired by that experience. Exploring the dynamics of caring and being cared for, The Tightrope Walker is a solo performance that seeks to hold a space for the audience the way that a facilitator does, a two-way exchange where the isolation of illness is interwoven with the deep connection of community.
Perspectives
‘In life the song is a very important thing’ Museum of Song: Ireland and Ukraine
The Museum of Song is a song collecting project, co-created by artists Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley. New members of the West Cork community from Ukraine were invited to take part in 2022. Tetyana Karpenko and Olha Baglaenko of the Chervona Kalyna choir, supported by interpreter and choir member Ivan Humenuik, reflect on their experiences of sharing culture and kinship through song.
Perspectives
Nothing for us without us: Pavee Point’s creative approach to Traveller men’s health
Patrick Reilly and Michael Collins from Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre discuss the health inequalities that Travellers face, the work of the Men’s Health Team, and the Traveller-led creative initiatives that are giving visibility to Traveller men’s experiences.
Perspectives
Teen Spirit: Music adventures in the lockdown era
Davina Flaherty is a singer-songwriter and musician from Galway. A member of CanTeen Ireland, the national young people’s cancer support group, Davina has been taking part in an online music project since summer 2020 led by musicians Seán Carpio and Ríona Sally Hartman.
Perspectives
Social Prescribing: A Collaborative Approach to Health and Wellbeing
People experiencing loneliness and social isolation often seek out their GP for a medical solution to the deep sense of loss and disconnection they feel. Cecily Maher discusses the growing role of Social Prescribing within healthcare provision, which connects individuals to non-medical sources of support within their local community.
Perspectives
Whose Move? Body Politics and Health Equality: Positioning Arts Practice in Contested Territories
When engaging with marginalized experiences and excluded constituents, artists sometimes find themselves outside the current framework of arts and health practice.
Perspectives
The Value of Collaboration: Reflections on the implementation of the Per Cent for Art Scheme in a community nursing unit
As the Director of Nursing of a HSE community nursing unit for older people, I believe that residents should be able to live their lives to the full with opportunities for personal development and enrichment through connections to the wider community.
Perspectives
Both Sides of the Coin: The Distinctive Value of Art in Health Care
François Matarasso calls for an acceptance of the differences between arts and science when assessing arts and health practice.
Perspectives
A Love-Filled Slap: A Manifesto for Arts and Health
Director of Arts for Health at Manchester Metropolitan University, Clive Parkinson describes the political thinking that led to and is embodied in the UK’s first Manifesto for Arts and Health.
Perspectives
Working with stories of other people’s traumatic experiences: Questions of responsibility as an artist
I sometimes make artworks dealing with other people’s personal and traumatic experiences, including mental and physical ill-health, and various human rights abuses, often through direct engagement or collaboration with them.
Perspectives
Grey Matters: The role of the Arts and Health in the delivery of ‘Healthy Ireland’
In light of the publication of ‘Healthy Ireland', Senior Health Promotion Officer Caroline Peppard calls for a recognition of the role of the arts in developing a culture of healthcare that goes beyond the scientific and considers all the determinants of health.
Perspectives
Music in common: Probing the divergent mind-sets underpinning Music Therapy and Music in Healthcare
As a trained music therapist and a professional performing musician who works in healthcare settings, I am often asked ‘What is music therapy?’ and ‘What is the difference between music therapy and music in healthcare?’
Perspectives
It’s not you, it’s me
Kildare Arts Officer, Lucina Russell, argues for the place of arts and health practice as an integral part of a local authority arts programme, and describes how her own recent experience of healthcare has deepened her appreciation for this field of work.
Perspectives
Where does arts and health research belong in academic terms?
This podcast features extracts from a round table discussion by a group of postgraduate researchers around the academic positioning of arts and health research. It was hosted by the Waterford Healing Arts Trust in the School of Nursing Trinity College in 2011 and chaired by Catherine McCabe PhD.
Perspectives
Can good arts and health practice be taught?
Hilary Moss argues for the need for accredited and on-the-job training for artists working in healthcare settings to ensure best arts and heath practice and place the work of artists in this field on an equal footing with health professionals.
Perspectives
A social model for health
Aidan Warner, Principal Community Worker with the HSE South (Cork), argues that art and health should consider a social model of health as the context for its practice in Ireland.
Podcasts (2 results)
Podcasts
HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast – Traveller Wellbeing Through Creativity
Martin Beanz Warde discusses his ‘Through Our Eyes’ photography project, funded under the Traveller Wellbeing Through Creativity initiative in 2022, and his personal story about expressing his creative ability in a variety of ways.
Podcasts
Arts and Health Check Up, Check In 2017 – Keynote conversation between Mark Storor and Patrick Fox
A keynote conversation between artist and theatre maker Mark Storor and Patrick Fox from Heart of Glass chaired by Ailbhe Murphy from Create.
Videos (9 results)
Videos
Moments of Light – Creative Engagement with Children in Health Contexts
Sarah Fuller and Yvonne Cullivan, Artists with Helium Arts, discuss their experiences of working with children and young people through the arts in healthcare settings in Galway.
Videos
The Art of Being Healthy and Well National Symposium
The Art of Being Healthy and Well national symposium took place in June 2022 at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, co-hosted by the Creative Ireland Programme, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland), the HSE and the Arts Council.
Videos
Cultural Leadership: Gráinne Hope in conversation with Moira Sinclair
Gráinne Hope, founder and Artistic Director of Kids’ Classics, and Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Chair of Clore Leadership, explore the theme of cultural leadership, including its role within the field of arts and health, during an online conversation in April 2021.
Videos
Lán De Cheol
A short film by Sean Phair documenting the Freedom to Fly project with Mayfield Men’s Shed. This project took place as part of Creative Enquiry – Arts and Older People, an investigative collaborative venture looking at barriers to participation in the arts for older people.
Videos
Shine Your Light
Shine Your Light is produced by That's Life in honour of frontline staff and people affected by Covid-19. This light installation was projected on Kilcornan House, Clarinbridge, Galway in April 2020.
Videos
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions present SIVE
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions are a series of live recorded sessions with surprise music artists and Past Times Community Choir, a choir supporting people living with dementia, their families, friends and communities in Co. Kildare.
Videos
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions present Charlie McGettigan
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions are a series of live recorded sessions with surprise music artists and Past Times Community Choir, a choir supporting people living with dementia, their families, friends and communities in Co. Kildare.
Videos
The New Normal
The New Normal is a collaborative community arts and health project exploring the lived experience of breast cancer through a visual arts lens.
Videos
The Soothsayers’ Sounds of Superpowers
Teenagers with experience of cancer from CanTeen Ireland joined forces with composer and multi-instrumentalist Sean Carpio to form The Soothsayers.
Guidelines (2 results)
Guidelines
An Introduction to Arts And Health // 10 Things to Consider
This publication is designed for healthcare professionals, artists and others who want to learn more about arts and health practice and may be at the early stages of planning an arts and health project.
Guidelines
Participatory Arts Practice in Healthcare Contexts
Guidelines for good practice for artists and healthcare professionals engaged in participatory arts practice in healthcare contexts in Ireland.
Policies & Strategies (3 results)
Policies & Strategies
Compassionate Communities Position Paper
The compassionate communities approach is one in which caregiving, dying, death and grief are shared responsibilities of the whole community, complementing formal services dedicated to end-of-life care by fostering local networks of care and compassion. This position paper, developed as part of the ongoing all-Ireland Compassionate Communities research project, includes the role of the arts in facilitating discussions around emotive topics and helping to develop a compassionate culture.
Policies & Strategies
Health Services Healthy Ireland Implementation Plan 2023 – 2027
Strengthening partnership and community working is one of the strategic priority areas, and includes a partnership approach with Creative Ireland, the Arts Council, and Healthy Ireland in the Department of Health to identify and support key opportunities to strengthen arts and health in the HSE.
Policies & Strategies
Healthy Ireland Strategic Action Plan 2021–2025
Healthy Ireland is the national framework for action to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living in Ireland. The Strategic Action Plan 2021-2025 includes priority focus areas for arts and culture.
Research & Evaluation (16 results)
Research & Evaluation
Social prescribing outcomes: a mapping review of the evidence from 13 countries to identify key common outcomes
As a means for supporting a range of health and wellbeing goals, social prescribing programmes have been implemented around the world. This mapping review explores the broad array of social prescribing outcomes that have been studied in 13 countries and maps the outcomes that have been most commonly studied.
Research & Evaluation
The impact of social prescribing on health service use and costs: Examples of local evaluations in practice
This report from the National Academy for Social Prescribing in the UK summarises the analysis of social prescribing evaluation data from nine local health systems across England. The findings indicate that social prescribing can substantially reduce pressure on the NHS, including through reduced GP appointments, reduced hospital admissions and reduced A&E visits.
Research & Evaluation
Sites of Significance
Sites of Significance is a research report exploring pathways to engagement and work in dance experienced by dance artists and facilitators who live and / or work within territorial border areas of Cavan and Fermanagh-Omagh Council areas. One of the report recommendations is for greater recognition and resourcing by local authorities of local dance facilitators for their contribution to social and health-based outcomes.
Research & Evaluation
Orchestras in Healthcare 2023
Orchestras in Healthcare #2 explores the contribution that orchestras (including those integrated in opera companies) currently make in the public health sector in the UK. This report presents findings from the second UK-wide Orchestras in Healthcare survey (the first survey was undertaken in 2020).
Research & Evaluation
Creative Carers Report: Arts for Health Partnership, West Cork
In 2022, the Arts for Health Partnership developed and delivered Creative Carers, a participatory arts programme strand for and with carers in West Cork. This report explores the research and development phase, programme strands and delivery, and quantitative and qualitative outcomes.
Research & Evaluation
The Impact of Arts and Cultural Engagement on Population Health
This report summarises findings from a series of longitudinal studies conducted between 2017 and 2022 that examined the relationship between arts and cultural engagement and health and wellbeing outcomes using UK and US cohort studies.
Research & Evaluation
Social Return on Investment study of the Helium Arts Creative Health Hub Programme
Helium Arts is the national children's arts and health organisation. This Social Return on Investment study covers Helium's work over a two-year period (2019 - 2020). The research found that the social value of Helium's work is worth almost twice as much as the funding it receives based on the outcomes achieved for stakeholders.
Research & Evaluation
Choirs in Crisis – Soundbites of Singing through the first year of COVID-19
As an independent adjunct to an online survey investigating singing group leaders’ experiences of online singing sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic, undertaken by the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, these five cases by Angus McLewin Associates capture some of the ways that community singing groups and choirs managed to keep singing through the first year of COVID-19, from February 2020 to March 2021.
Research & Evaluation
Creative Enquiry: Artist Residency and Older People Engagement Project
Creative Enquiry - Arts and Older People is an investigative collaborative venture that creatively explores fresh approaches to arts engagement with older people and advances best practice models.
Research & Evaluation
Museums as Spaces for Wellbeing
A Second Report from the National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing in England explores in greater depth the development of the museums, health and wellbeing sector.
Research & Evaluation
Calm and Collected: Museums and galleries: the UK’s untapped wellbeing resource?
The results of two stages of research undertaken by Art Fund – a UK-wide representative survey of over 2,500 adults, and a qualitative social study – suggest that engaging with art collections more frequently can help improve our wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
A review of the Social Impacts of Culture and Sport (UK)
This research reviews the current evidence base on the social impacts of sport and culture.
Research & Evaluation
Restoring the Balance: the effect of arts participation on wellbeing and health
A collection of interviews conducted between May and July 2009.
Research & Evaluation
Healthy Attendance?
A study that looks at the impact of cultural engagement and sports participation on health and satisfaction with life in Scotland.
Research & Evaluation
Art for Health: A review of good practice in community-based arts projects and interventions which impact on health and wellbeing
A UK review, produced in 1999, on the nature of arts for health initiatives and recommendations for good practice.
Research & Evaluation
GENNING UP: A Research Paper for Blue Drum on Community-based Arts in Health (DOC)
A research paper for Blue Drum on community-based arts in health.
Articles & Documentation (4 results)
Articles & Documentation
Reflecting on arts and health practice by Luci Kershaw
Luci Kershaw is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores health topics and themes, as well as more traditional practice within the area of arts and health. Luci was awarded the artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary in 2024 and has spent her time exploring how to embrace more collaborative approaches to sharing people’s stories through sound and film.
Articles & Documentation
Creative Brain Week: Knowledge Making
This publication brings together the lived experience and insights shared during Creative Brain Week, an annual exploration of how brain science and creativity connect to seed new ideas in social development, culture, wellbeing, and physical, mental and brain health across the life cycle and across society.
Articles & Documentation
The Art of being Healthy and Well: Symposium Report
The all-of-government Creative Ireland Programme, Healthy Ireland, the Health Service Executive and the Arts Council co-hosted a national symposium in 2022 on the positive benefits of creativity and the arts to health and wellbeing at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.
Articles & Documentation
Material Language: Reflections on an arts and health practice by Ciara Harrison
Arts and health practice often involves engaging with people who are far from home and familiar spaces. How does an artist create a sense of space and place, of warmth and trust, in unfamiliar territory?
News (82 results)
Event
Cut From The Same Cloth at Pearse Museum, Dublin
Honouring the power of human trust and connection, this exhibition is a song to cloth and to story.
Event
Cut From The Same Cloth – Kilkenny Exhibition
Cut from the Same Cloth seeks to build trust and foster new connections between women and girls from minority communities in Ireland and biomedical health researchers.
Event
SoloSIRENs Symposium at Creative Brain Week: How Do We Care?
SoloSIRENs third symposium: How Do We Care.
Event
Launch of ROAM – Supporting wellbeing and social connection in Cork City
ROAM Cork will launch on 29 May, an arts exhibition and temporary trail between Mayfield and Knocknaheeny.
Event
Launch of Cavan Community Cinema: Special screening of Unspoken
Cavan Arts Festival is launching a new initiative titled Cavan Community Cinema with a special screening of Unspoken, followed by a discussion with director Alan Bradley and Dr.
Event
Workshop – Producing in a Collaborative Context with Kath Gorman
Are you a self-producing artist.
News
Save the Date! Creative Brain Week 2025
A pioneering initiative from the Global Brain Health Institute, Creative Brain Week at Trinity College Dublin enters its fourth year of celebrating innovation at the intersection of arts and brain science.
Event
Cut From The Same Cloth – Exhibition Tour: Connecting Biomedical Research with Community Voices
Cut From The Same Cloth aims to foster connections that pave the way for meaningful integration of minority voices with UCD Conway Institute’s Patient Voice in Health Research initiative.
Event
The Colossus – An intergenerational exploration of loss and bereavement by suicide
The Colossus is a socially engaged art project exploring North Clondalkin’s unspoken and unacknowledged oral histories related to loss and bereavement by suicide – colossal things of enormous size and importance.
Opportunity
Call for Artist in Residence at Sligo Rape Crisis Centre
Sligo Rape Crisis Centre invites Sligo-based artists of any discipline to apply to their inaugural Artist in Residence programme.
Event
Social Prescribing: Groundbreaking or Gimmicky? Online lecture by Prof Daisy Fancourt
The UK has been at the forefront of the social prescribing movement, a type of personalised care which connects individuals with non-clinical supports and services within the community to address diverse health and social needs.
Opportunity
Opportunities for artists with Saolta Arts – HSE West & North West Hospitals
Saolta Arts invites professional practicing visual artists to apply for opportunities in the following hospitals of HSE West and North West in 2025 – 2026: University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park University Hospital, Portiuncula University Hospital Ballinasloe, Mayo University Hospital and Roscommon University Hospital.
Opportunity
Open Call: Arts & Health Residency – Creative Places Tipperary Town
Creative Places Tipperary Town is seeking two socially engaged artists from all disciplines, with facilitation experience and a background in Arts and Health contexts, for a six-month residency running from February to July 2025.
Opportunity
Mothering Spaces Research 2025 – Call for Expressions of Interest
Established in 2022, Mothering Spaces seeks to explore themes and issues around female health, the maternal and feminine identity through curatorial and research methods.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender: Arts and Social Prescribing Research – Arts Council of Ireland
The Arts Council is inviting tenders for the provision of research services exploring the current role and potential development of arts and creative activities taking place as part of HSE-funded social prescribing services in Ireland.
Event
Museums, Health and Wellbeing Summit 2025 – Online, 28-29 January
The world's leading conference for museum professionals interested in health and wellbeing is back for its fourth year, bringing together inspiring presentations and actionable advice from those leading this work in museums around the globe.
Opportunity
Call for Project Co-ordinator: Mending HeArts, Creative Health and Wellbeing Project
Saolta Arts, the west of Ireland’s leading Arts and Health programme, is seeking a project co-ordinator to deliver Mending HeArts, a Creative Health and Wellbeing project for people living with heart conditions in Galway.
Event
The Tightrope Walker at First Fortnight Festival 2025
With humour and humility, The Tightrope Walker by Jenny Macdonald navigates a personal journey through the chaotic and profound territory of illness and recovery.
Student Placement
Student Placements – Cork County Arts & Library Service (REF 002)
The Arts & Health Student Training Portal provides student artists with volunteer placement opportunities to support and learn from a professional artist on an existing arts programme with a health or social care service.
Opportunity
Call for Project Co-ordinator: Shared Island Creative Health & Wellbeing Project
Creative Ireland Kerry within Kerry County Council is seeking a project co-ordinator to deliver Weaving Worlds Together, a Shared Island Creative Health and Wellbeing Project.
Opportunity
Project artists sought for Ignite cross-border community programme
Arts Care, Northern Ireland’s leading Arts in Health organisation, is seeking three artists for the Ignite Community Programme, a four-year social innovation programme which will take place across Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland.
News
Sites of Significance: Cross-border research on pathways to engagement and work in dance
Sites of Significance is a research report and short documentary film exploring pathways to engagement and work in dance experienced by dance artists and facilitators who live and / or work within territorial border areas of Cavan and Fermanagh-Omagh Council areas.
News
Mending heARTS – Arts and Health project for people living with heart conditions in Galway
A new programme of arts workshops for patients and people living with heart conditions launched in Galway City on Sunday 29 September, as part of World Heart Day.
News
The forest that won’t forget: An artwork dedicated to women and families affected by CervicalCheck failures
The forest that won't forget is a national public artwork dedicated to us, the women and families across Ireland who are affected by the failures of the CervicalCheck programme.
Event
Creative Communities Roadshow in Cork City
Cork City Council Arts Office will host a series of five in-person and one online creative, community-focused networking events in October 2024 as part of the Creative Communities Roadshow.
News
Call for participants! Research Study on Mural Art in Northern Ireland
Researchers from Ulster University’s School of Communication and Media are conducting a new study exploring the unconscious impact of mural art on the psychosocial landscape of the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland.
Opportunity
Call for Tenders – Creative Lead for EPIC Arts Project with Children in Care
EPIC, Empowering People in Care, is seeking a Creative Lead for Know Your Rights in Care, a participative arts project with children and young people in care.
Event
Illness as Metaphor by Dead Centre – Dublin Fringe Festival 2024
In her book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag sets out to diagnose the problem with the way we think about illness.
Event
Templates of Chance at Rua Red: Visualising the addiction recovery process
Over the last 18 months Luxembourg artists Stéphanie Rollin and David Brognon have embedded themselves within the community of Tallaght as part of a residency and new commission for Rua Red, South Dublin Arts Centre.
Event
Helium Arts to host week-long celebration from 11-15 June at the Naughton Institute in Dublin
Come join us as we celebrate! To mark our launch in Dublin and to celebrate our first five years delivering impactful, creative programmes, Helium Arts is hosting a week-long celebration from 11 - 15 June at the Naughton Institute (the former Science Gallery) at Trinity College Dublin on Pearse Street, including a launch event on June 11th.
News
Creative Health and Wellbeing Projects receive over €1.2 million from Creative Ireland
The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, T.D.
Opportunity
Irish Hospice Foundation Arts and Culture Training Programme
Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) invites applicants for a free training programme exploring the many roles of arts and culture in contemporary dying, grief and bereavement.
Event
Rewire Your Choir: Embracing Neurodiversity – Cork International Choral Festival
Dr Eva McMullan-Glossop is facilitating an interactive workshop as part of Cork International Choral Festival to demonstrate accessible and creative ways to rewire traditional approaches to choral teaching, making the choral rehearsal an enjoyable and accessible space for everyone.
Opportunity
Call for Artist Facilitator: Early Years Pilot Arts Project in Leitrim
Leitrim County Council Arts Office, in collaboration with the Healthy Leitrim Breastfeeding Programme, is launching an Early Years Pilot Arts Project.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Development Coordinator at Galway Community Circus
Galway Community Circus is looking for a Development Coordinator to support the development and implementation of their fundraising strategy, increase income generation and diversify funding streams to help deliver their artistic ambitions across an exciting portfolio of programmes and partnerships.
Event
Bedtime Adventures – An enchanting dreamscape for children with lifelong health conditions
Bedtime Adventures is an enchanting interactive dreamscape for children aged six and under with lifelong health conditions and/or additional needs.
Opportunity
Call for participants: Siblings research project
Are you an adult who grew up with a sibling with a disability or chronic illness? If so, artist Tess Leak would love to meet you! Tess is conducting some research to explore the experiences and needs of other adult siblings (like herself) through one-to-one informal conversations.
Opportunity
Pilot Wheelchair Céilí Dance Leader Training Programme
All Irish Dance is a social enterprise tackling social isolation and loneliness by connecting people through céilí.
Opportunity
Call for volunteers to work with professional artists on Helium Arts’ Creative Health Programme
Helium Arts, the children's arts and health organisation, is seeking volunteers to work with professional artists to support the creativity of children and teenagers on its 2024 Creative Health Programme.
Opportunity
Creative Places Athy Arts Impact Award
Creative Places Athy is seeking proposals from local, national/international professional artists/creatives or arts organisations/collectives that wish to collaborate artistically with individuals or groups in Athy on creative projects that will create an artistic impact for the people and place of the area.
Opportunity
Professional Diploma in Art and Health from NCAD – Creative Futures Academy
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in partnership with Creative Futures Academy is now accepting applications for the Professional Diploma in Art and Health 2024. This eight-week, blended course offers grounding in an art and health context and will connect participants with leading figures of practice.
Event
Irish Hospice Foundation: Skills Exchange in Letterkenny exploring creative practices
Irish Hospice Foundation is hosting two days of skills and information exchange in Letterkenny on 27 January and 9 February for those working with or interested in working with people affected by dying, death, grief and loss, using creative practices.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: UCL Programme Coordinator – Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities
University College London is seeking a Programme Coordinator (Health Inequalities) to work on ‘Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’, a UK Research and Innovation and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) programme.
Event
Vital Signs on the Road: Delivering Arts to Healthcare Settings – Webinar
Festival in a Van is hosting an online seminar exploring the transformative power of the arts in healthcare settings, with a focus on their Vital Signs tour with Poetry Ireland.
Opportunity
Music in Mind: NCH workshops for young people with kidney disease and their siblings
Are you a young person with end stage kidney disease who would like to have fun exploring your musical ability.
Event
How Do We Care? SoloSIRENs Festival 2023
SoloSIRENs is a participatory festival bringing theatre artists and South County Dublin communities together to consider and explore the nature of care in our society.
Event
Free creative workshops for children with physical health conditions
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is inviting children and young people (ages 6-15) with lifelong physical health conditions to explore their creativity this autumn.
Opportunity
Music in Mind: NCH workshops for young people with kidney disease
Are you a young person with end stage kidney disease who would like to have fun exploring your musical ability.
News
Reading for Wellbeing
'Stories can be healing.
News
The launch of IMMA Horizons: Supporting health and wellbeing across the life course
IMMA Horizons: Lifelong Creativity for the Curious, a new initiative aimed at supporting health and wellbeing through creative programmes and experiences, launched at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) on 14 June 2023.
Opportunity
Applications open: Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health 2024/25
The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) is accepting applications for the 2024/25 Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health programme.
Event
Addiction-Recovery Arts Futures Conference (UK)
This one-day conference at Liverpool Hope University Creative Campus builds from the one day Knowledge Exchange Event Addiction Recovery Arts Network in 2022 which was organised by Dr Cathy Sloan at the London College of Music.
Opportunity
International Health Humanities Conference 2023: Call for Proposals
The 11th International Health Humanities Conference is being hosted by the University of Derby from 21-23 September 2023 on the theme of 'History and Practice of Human Care'.
Opportunity
Arts + Health Bursaries 2023: Documentation Bursary and Emerging Artist Bursary
The national arts and health website is offering two bursaries in 2023, funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.
News
The launch of Réalta – National Body for Arts and Health in Ireland
Réalta, the national body for arts and health in Ireland, was officially launched on Friday 3 March 2023.
Event
Online movement classes for people with Long Covid, CFS and debilitating conditions
Gentle Movement for Relaxation is a free online movement class hosted by Uilinn West Cork Arts Centre for people living with long Covid, chronic fatigue syndrome, a debilitating condition or any kind of disability.
Opportunity
Invitation for Proposals: Traveller Wellbeing through Creativity 2023
Proposals are invited from Traveller organisations with experience of working with health/wellbeing and/or creative arts, and/or creative practitioners with experience of, or relevant to, working with Travellers, for the Traveller Wellbeing through Creativity 2023 initiative.
Event
Well Festival of Arts & Wellbeing 2023
Good Vibrations, Celebrating Love, Life and Magic, and Standing Shoulder to Shoulder: Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing 2023 announces programme of music, movement, poetry, art and stories to make us feel good.
Event
Helium Arts February mid-term camps for children with physical health conditions
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is hosting free art workshops this mid-term to support children aged 8-12 with lifelong physical health conditions in living life to the full.
News
Wherever you go: Learnings from an emerging arts and health practice by Áine Rose Connell
Áine Rose Connell, a visual artist and poet, brings her background as a Speech and Language Therapist and her experience of collaborative poetry making to bear in Wherever you go, a written exploration of her emerging arts and health practice.
News
One Nation One Project: An Arts and Wellness Journey across the United States
One Nation/One Project is bringing together artists, local government, and health providers across the United States with the aim of fostering equitable recovery to the Covid-19 pandemic and creating healthier communities through the arts.
Opportunity
Kildare County Council Arts Service: Arts, Health & Wellbeing Funding Awards 2023
Kildare County Council has announced two awards for 2023 to support creative projects and artists working in the area of Arts, Health & Wellbeing in the county.
Opportunity
Call for artists with experience of inclusive arts programming – dlr Arts Office Artist Panel
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office is looking for artists / facilitators from all artform areas with experience devising and delivering workshops, to potentially work as part of dlr Lexicon Gallery’s Learning Programme and / or Youth Creative Engagement Programme.
Event
I brought the dream of flying… Exhibition by Corina Duyn and Caroline Schofield at GOMA
I brought the dream of flying… is a new exhibition by artists Corina Duyn and Caroline Schofield at GOMA Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford.
News
Mapping Arts and Health Across the Midlands: New Research Report
Mapping Arts and Health Across the Midlands is a new research report published by the Arts Office of Laois County Council and partner organisations Offaly County Council Arts Office, Westmeath County Council Arts Office, Anam Beo, Helium Arts, Music Generation (Offaly/Westmeath) and Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT).
Event
Creative and Social Programme for Carers of People Living with Dementia
dlr Libraries are running an interactive and engaging programme this autumn specifically designed with carers in mind.
Event
Creative Places and Create Networking Event 2022
Creative Places is an Arts Council initiative for places which have not benefitted from sustained arts investment in the past, to build local arts programmes.
Opportunity
Applications open for IHF Seed Grants 2022-2023: Creative Exploration of Loss
The Irish Hospice Foundation's Seed Grants scheme offers communities across Ireland multiple ways to process the impact of death, dying, grief, and more general losses.
Event
CORRUPTING CARE at Dublin Fringe Festival
CORRUPTING CARE is a live show from multidisciplinary Next Generation 2022 artist David McGovern that aims to disrupt and expand how we view both medical care and self-care.
Event
Social Singing, Health and Wellbeing: Current Practice, Insights and Reflection
Social Singing, Health and Wellbeing is a special journal supplement of Health Promotion International, guest edited by Prof Helen Phelan, Prof Hilary Moss, Dr Hannah Fahey and Prof Stephen Clift.
Opportunity
Helium Arts seeks visual artists in various regions to join Artist Panel
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, invites applications from professional, multi-disciplinary visual artists with a strong collaborative and inclusive arts practice working with children and young people, including children with disabilities, to join their Artist Panel as Associate Artists.
Opportunity
New Music Director sought for Bantry Community Choir
Bantry Community Choir is recruiting for a new Music Director.
In Conversation
Video – Moments of Light: Creative Engagement with Children in Health Contexts
Sarah Fuller and Yvonne Cullivan, Artists with Helium Arts, discuss their experiences of working with children and young people through the arts in healthcare settings in Galway.
Opportunity
Sing to Beat Parkinson’s: Online Training for Singing Leaders
Sing to Beat Parkinson’s (STBP) is delivering an online training programme for existing and potential singing leaders working with people living with Parkinson’s in November 2022.
Opportunity
Music in Healthcare Settings: Introductory 3-Day Course for Musicians in Meath and Louth
Music in Healthcare Settings is a three-day introductory course led by Music & Health Ireland, taking place from 26-28 August.
Opportunity
Call for participants: Theatre collaboration with people living with long-term illness
Dead Centre, a Dublin-based theatre company, are looking to create a new project in collaboration with people living with long-term illness.
News
Traveller wellbeing to be explored in five new creative projects
Five creative projects have received funding under the Traveller Wellbeing through Creativity initiative developed by the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland Programme), the Creative Ireland Programme, the HSE and the Arts Council.
Opportunity
HIV and AIDS National Monument: Call for Expressions of Interest
The Office of Public Works (OPW) invites expressions of interest to create a HIV and AIDS national monument 'to remember those who have died and mark their lives and contribution to society, while also showing solidarity with those living with and affected by HIV today.
Event
In Conversation: Moments of Light – agency and connection though creative engagement with children and young people in health contexts
Join us on 28 June for an online conversation exploring arts for children in healthcare contexts.
Event
Helium Arts’ Summer Showcases in Cork, Limerick and Galway
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is hosting a series of exhibitions across Ireland this summer featuring artworks created by children who participated in Helium's recent spring programme.
Event
The Art of Being Healthy & Well: National Symposium on the role of creativity and arts in health and wellbeing
Catherine Martin, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, has announced a national symposium on creativity, health and wellbeing co-hosted by the Creative Ireland Programme, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland), the Health Service Executive and the Arts Council.
Opportunity
Bank of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund 2022: Enhancing the wellbeing of communities
The third round of the Bank of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund, in partnership with Business to Arts, is currently open for applications with a closing date of 23 June 2022.
