Creative Health Hub brings innovative approach to health and wellbeing
The University of Huddersfield will be at the heart of an innovative approach to health and wellbeing thanks to its new Creative Health Hub based in the new National Health Innovation Campus.
The concept of creative health involves creative approaches and activities that have a positive impact on health and wellbeing, which can range from visual and performing arts through to gardening. It can also cover innovative ways to approach health and care services to promote improved health and ease pressure on the NHS.
The Creative Health Community Research, Innovation, Learning and Development Hub will support a creative health infrastructure across West Yorkshire. Set to last for two and a half years, the project will work with stakeholders across West Yorkshire to develop initiatives that can help to make people’s lives happier and healthier. The Hub will contribute to the ambitions of the creative health system formed by Mayor Tracy Brabin and West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board in December 2023.
This follows on from the University’s Cultures of Creative Health programme (School of Arts and Humanities), which featured knowledge and cultural exchanges between artists, researchers and creative health providers across West Yorkshire.
Dr Rowan Bailey, Reader in Cultural Theory and Practice and Project Lead for the Creative Health Hub says, “We are excited to be working in partnership with creative and cultural providers, local authorities, voluntary, community and social enterprises and people with lived experience to explore how to evolve effective and meaningful creative health approaches across West Yorkshire.”
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The Creative Health Hub is the first of its kind across the region and will work with a consortium of external partners to raise the visibility and awareness of creative health and generate projects that can improve access to and delivery of creative health provision.
Creative health workforce development is central to this, and the project has already identified multiple potential strands of activity to support knowledge and skills exchange across health, social care, education, cultural and creative sectors.
Dr Bailey (Arts and Humanities), Dr Nicola Stenberg (Executive and Professional Development) and Professor Liz Towns-Andrews (Innovation and Enterprise) will work together to run the Hub in the National Health Innovation campus.
“We hope to provide a stimulus and conduit for innovation, training and knowledge exchange between the university, NHS Trusts, local authorities, third sector organisations and communities to support the development of new approaches for addressing inequalities and enhancing health and wellbeing.”
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “It’s fantastic that progress is being made to support our ambition to boost health with creativity in West Yorkshire. We’re playing to our strengths to help people throughout our communities live healthy, happy lives. I look forward to new initiatives coming to fruition, as we work to build a stronger, brighter West Yorkshire that works for all.”
"It is exciting that the University of Huddersfield is developing the Creative Health Hub," added Alice Thwaite , Creative Health Associate, North East, North Cumbria and Yorkshire, National Centre for Creative Health. "It will support the cross-sector working, particularly involving the creative and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations, that is so crucial to the delivery of health services in the future."