This half-day symposium is for arts practitioners, public health practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in social prescribing and arts as primary prevention.

The aim is to engage in a critical dialogue on the benefits and risks of framing arts programmes as public health and wellbeing interventions.

The public health prevention framework offers a potentially powerful lens for situating arts programmes as health interventions. The use of arts-based programmes as therapeutic tools has a well-established evidence base and arts programmes are increasingly being used as destinations for social prescribing programmes, to treat and support patients experiencing challenges with their health and social and emotional wellbeing.

However, there is an alternative framing for the arts in public health, as method of primary prevention. In this frame, the arts are positioned as a foundation for wellbeing, having a positive impact on health before problems occur and helping to prevent problems that require treatment from occurring in the first place.

This half-day event will give participants the chance to discuss and debate the opportunities and risks presented by these different framings of arts programmes as public health interventions, with a focus on the arts as primary prevention. Discussion sessions will also consider the implications for funding, evaluation and ‘mission creep’, including exploring approaches or practices that might be useful in mitigating potentially negative impacts of a public health prevention approach to the arts.

At the event we’ll be hearing about health impacts of arts projects, including reflections on the challenges of evidencing impact, from our speakers:

  • Alison Leitch, Community Link Work Assistant Services Manager, NHS Lothian

  • Katie Duffy, Head of Arts and Music and Lorenzo Mele, Senior Arts and Music Manager at Glasgow Life

  • Vicky Williams, CEO Big Noise and Lisa Garnham, Lecturer in Social Policy at University of Strathclyde

  • Jane Donald, CEO Royal Scottish National Orchestra

This event is joint-hosted by the Centre for Health Policy, University of Strathclyde and the Scottish Centre for Community Development/CHEX.

Please sign up using our form and one of the team will be in touch closer to the event with more details. If you have any questions, please email Lisa Garnham.

Sign up now!