Develop your Creative Health practice - free training workshops!

Looking to develop your creative health work in Medway? Want to learn more about best practice, funding, resources and opportunities? Join us at our five free learning workshops!

Tell me more!
We are working with creative health expert Laura Bailey to offer five in-person learning sessions between September 2024 and May 2025 as part of Medway’s major new creative health programme. 

The sessions are bespoke for Medway and designed to give you the knowledge, tools and confidence to run impactful and successful arts and health programmes locally. The programme will be delivered through a mixture of group activities, guest speakers and lecture style content and you will get resources lists and links to further reading to take away with you.

Who are the sessions for?
Participants must live in or have a practice based in Medway. We welcome applications from freelance creatives, cultural practitioners, and small-scale cultural organisations as well as voluntary and community sector practitioners.

The programme is designed for both early career professionals and those who are further into their careers who have little or no experience in creative health.  The sessions are for those interested in working at the intersection of creativity, health and wellbeing in community settings.

We encourage those who are underrepresented in the creative health field to apply, including those from global majority or disadvantaged backgrounds, those from rural communities, young people aged 18-30, people with relevant lived experience or disabilities, and those from local grassroots organisations. Please apply for a stipend to enable you to attend if you are unwaged, low waged or would struggle to attend for financial reasons.

What will I learn?
The programme is designed so you can attend all the sessions OR just the ones you would find most useful.

Session 1: Develop Your Creative Health Practice
Fri 13 Sept 2024, 9:30 - 13:00

In this session you will learn about creative health in policy and practice nationally, regionally and locally. You will be introduced to key resources, guides and case studies to support your own creative health development.  You will consider the role of creative health practitioners and how to ensure quality from planning to delivery.

Session 2: Creativity & Local Health Priorities
Thu 7 Nov 2024, 15:30 – 19:00

In this session you will learn about local health inequalities and priorities, the wider determinants of health, how creativity can address these and how it can be embedded into health pathways.  We'll be looking at how health commissioning works, including social prescribing, and how the creative sector can collaborate with the voluntary and community sector.

Session 3: Getting Creative Health Work
Fri 10 Jan 2025, 9:30 – 13:00

In this session you will be guided through the funding and investment landscape, and learn about adapting language, what policies are needed, and how to make sure you are paid properly for the work you do.  With a project in mind, you will spend time honing your proposal writing and project planning skills with peer feedback.

Session 4: Participant & Self Care in Creative Health
Thur 13 Mar 2025, 15:30 – 19:00

In this session you will consider how we can ensure the psychological and physical safety of everyone involved along with equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and designing projects through co-production.  We will discuss why self-care is important in creative health practice, including setting boundaries and peer support.

Session 5: Creative Health Evaluation
Fri 16 May, 9:30 – 13:00

In this final session, you will have the chance to run a mini creative session with peer review. We'll also return to the importance of evaluation and data.  We will look at options for further creative health learning, training, professional development and study, along with how to raise your profile and showcase work.

How do I sign up?
The sessions are free to attend, however spaces are limited and we want to ensure those who will benefit most are able to attend. Tell us about yourself, why you would like a place and how you plan to use what you learn.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are booking multiple sessions, please answer the booking questions for the first session booked – no need to answer for each session.

Access and financial support
The Smitheries at The Historic Dockyard Chatham is fully accessible. If you have access requirements or have any questions about access, please get in touch by email at hello@creativemedway.co.uk.

We are able to offer a limited number of stipends of up to £150.00 (per session) to support people to attend who would otherwise not be able to for financial reasons. Stipends are available for those who are unwaged, low waged or for whom other financial barriers exist. This stipend could cover loss of income, childcare, carer or travel costs etc. Please identify you would like to claim a stipend when you sign up.

About the Creative Health Place Partnership Programme
These sessions are bought to you as part of Medway's new Creative Health Place Partnership programme, funded by Arts Council England. The two-year partnership-driven project will transform how the creative and health sectors work together and with communities to make creativity central to wellbeing and preventative health interventions in Medway.

The programme brings together local and national partners including Creative Medway, Medway and Swale Health and Care Partnership, University of Kent, The National Centre for Creative Health and Medway Council’s Culture & Libraries, Public Housing and Public Health teams alongside local and national arts organisations including Icon Theatre, Ideas Test, Nucleus Arts and Live Music Now.

About Laura Bailey
Laura is a creative health and cultural placemaking specialist providing freelance consultancy services including facilitation, training and mentoring to support the development of ideas, policy and strategy, projects and initiatives, cross sector collaboration, community and stakeholder engagement.

Laura hosts and produces the Creative Health Stories podcast and offers unique audio story production that helps bring lived experience, evaluation and learning to life for dissemination to a wider audience in an accessible way.

About Creative Medway
Creative Medway exists to support and champion Medway's creative community. We oversee the delivery of the Creative Medway Cultural Strategy in partnership with Medway Council and facilitate strategic projects, run training and events and commission resources which connect and benefit Medway's cultural community.

To find out more about Creative Medway and be the first to know about future sessions, visit our website where you can also join our newsletter, or follow us on social media @CreativeMedway. Get in touch with us at hello@creativemedway.co.uk.