The Art of Wellbeing Conference

‘The Art of Wellbeing’, Creative Hertfordshire’s first Culture and Wellbeing Conference, will take place on Thursday 15th October 2015 in Hatfield, with the support of Hertfordshire Public Health.

There is increasing evidence that participation in culture and creativity can have significant health benefits and increase wellbeing. The recent ‘Quantifying and Valuing the Wellbeing Impacts of Culture and Sport’, published by DCMS in 2014, identified related savings to the NHS of £1,084 per person annually.

The conference will:
• Present examples of national and local research, and their associated findings, on how cultural activities can benefit the wellbeing sector.
• Highlight work currently taking place in Hertfordshire
• Begin to look at how the wellbeing and cultural sectors can work together locally in the future.

Our keynote speakers are:
• Norma Daykin, Professor Emerita, Arts in Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, UWE, Bristol who will review the national and international research evidence on the benefits arts can bring to health and wellbeing;
• Alice Thwaite, Equal Arts, who will speak about their work on creative ageing, culture and wellbeing, specifically looking at combating isolation and supporting people with dementia.

The audience of up to 200 delegates will be drawn from across Hertfordshire’s Public Health, GPs, social care providers, private sector, commissioners of services, housing providers, local authorities, education, artistic practitioners and cultural sector.

Attendance at this initial conference is by invitation only, as there has been a lot of interest in the conference and there are a limited amount of places. For those who cannot attend, there will be a detailed record of the conference available to download from www.creativehertfordshire.com.

Creative Hertfordshire will also be supporting other events over the following months which will be directly aimed at practitioners, including one on cultural commissioning in Spring 2016.

If you have an Arts and Health project that you would like to share through Creative Hertfordshire, please go to http://www.creativehertfordshire.com/the-art-of-wellbeing/call-for-hertfordshire-arts-and-health-projects-to-showcase/

For more information visit http://www.creativehertfordshire.com/the-art-of-wellbeing/