How can museums realise the potential of creative health practice?

A new report and training course have been launched to support museums and other cultural bodies that want to embed creative health practice in their services and programmes.

A collaboration between the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and the Group for Education in Museums (GEM), the work builds on the Working Together project that supported six museums to deliver projects tailored to local needs over an 18-month period.

The report, A Culture of Care: Creative Health in Museum Practice, examines the impact of the Working Together pilot.

Outcomes include increased staff confidence and skills in co-production and trauma-informed practice and improved wellbeing for participants and staff. The work grew cross-sector partnerships and effectively engaged people facing trauma, isolation and long-term health challenges, creating safer, more representative cultural spaces.

Despite mounting evidence of the positive impact of creative health programmes in museum settings, the report notes that this work is reliant on short-term funding agreements and lacks “the sustained organisational or sectorwide support they need to flourish, deepen partnerships and reach more people in their communities”.

Victoria Hume, the director of the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance, said: “We are thrilled with the evidence this evaluation presents of the impacts of Working Together on the people and institutions who have taken part.

“Realising the sector’s potential, however, requires more than recognition; it demands structural reform across the sector, with health and wellbeing embedded into policy, funding, governance, strategy, and staff support.”

The next stage of the work is a sector-wide training course, A Culture of Care: Creative Health in Museum Practice, which will build on the programme’s findings.

Rachel Tranter, GEM director, said: “We are delighted to see how Working Together enabled museums to place care, collaboration and community at the heart of their practice.

“The programme has strengthened skills, deepened partnerships and created more welcoming and supportive spaces for participants to develop learning that supports health and wellbeing.

“We look forward to building on this momentum through our new Culture of Care training and expanded mentoring support to enable museums to strategically embed health and wellbeing work as part of their learning and engagement programmes.”