Earlier this year, members of IPH’s Primary Care and Mental Health team held our first discussion forum event to launch the ‘Making Waves’ community & creative health network in Blackpool.
On 24 September at the Solaris Centre in Blackpool, around 40 attendees – including members of the project team, partner organisations and members of the local community – were in attendance to hear information from local creative organisations, charities, NHS Trusts, local government and education providers.
The event was introduced by University of Liverpool’s Dr Barbara Mezes, co-principal investigator for the Community and Creative Health project, as well as co-investigator Laura Albury, and Mike Crowther CEO of Empowerment Charity, a Blackpool-based advocacy organisation serving marginalised communities. A project overview including aims, priority areas, and activities was provided with Mike and Barbara emphasizing the importance of collaborations in uniting key partners from different sectors to improve health and wellbeing in the local community.
Following a productive morning of presentations and introductions, co-investigators Sue Flowers, a local artist and director of Green Close Studios, and Helen Shearn, an independent consultant in creative health; discussed their previous community work and their involvement as project work package leads. This included an outline of current findings on the positive effects of creative practices on health outcomes and how this aligns with future strategies to tackle public health challenges in the region.
Local project partners were then invited to deliver presentations on their work across the Fylde Coast area to raise awareness of the great work they do in our priority areas of young people mental health and wellbeing, alcohol and drug misuse and recovery, and serious illness and bereavement.
We were grateful to welcome the following talks:
- An overview of Citizens Advice Blackpool’s work in children and young people’s social prescribing, delivered by Fiona Williams and Lauren Sutton
- David Wilson and Nicola Plumb, who both work for Horizon Blackpool sharing stories of their lived experience and of addiction and recovery services in Blackpool, and how they had come to work in positions supporting fellow members of the community.
- An introduction to the Public Health Data work package by project co-investigator Dr Sophie Wickham, who is a research fellow in the Institute of Population Health at the University of Liverpool.
Following the presentations, attendees were invited to answer a variety of questions in small groups. The discussions were wide-ranging and brought together a range of different perspectives from across sectors.
We were pleased to be able to hear the group’s thoughts on the impacts of creativity on health in Blackpool, the current gaps in services and training, and the various strengths each individual and organisation could bring to the project. We then collated the responses, which we hope will inform the future direction of our work across all 3 of our project sites – Blackpool, Hastings and Weston-super-Mare.
The discussion forum was overall a great success, and we are looking forward to hosting another early in 2025. This will be an important opportunity for the research team and project partners to share their latest findings and update on their work, which will no doubt develop in the coming months.
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