The Medway Creative Health Place Partnership was established in 2024 thanks to £400,000 from the Arts Council England Place Partnership Fund.
On Wednesday, 16 September an event will be held at the Rochester Corn Exchange from 2.30pm to 4.30pm to look back on the successes and forward to what can come next. Residents, practitioners and organisations are all invited to join.
Over the past two years the programme has brought together artists, residents, health and social care professionals, universities and cultural organisations to explore how creativity can improve health and wellbeing across Medway.
Created in response to health inequalities, the programme has tested how sustained, locally rooted creative activity can support prevention, reduce isolation and strengthen community connections.
Funded through Arts Council England's Place Partnership Fund, the partnership has supported 17 creative health projects, delivered more than 200 creative sessions and reached audiences of more than 5,000 people. The programme has also helped secure more than £90,000 in additional investment for Creative Health activity in Medway, as well as demonstrating significant health and wellbeing improvements across participants.
Projects have explored a wide range of approaches to improving wellbeing through creativity. Live Music Now's Lullaby Project brought parents and professional musicians together to create personalised songs for their babies, supporting confidence, emotional wellbeing and parent-child bonding. Ideas Test's HEARD! developed a series of entertaining, site-specific, community-led activity in the heart of Brompton and Luton – including Beatboxing Bins, Brompton Halloween Trail and Murder For Breakfast.
Icon Theatre’s Act Up programme also worked with young people experiencing isolation, using drama and performance to build confidence, relationships and a sense of achievement.
Other projects included Nucleus Arts' weekly Messy Play and Craft & Chat sessions, which helped tackle loneliness and social isolation, and Once Upon a Time in Luton, a community storytelling project delivered through Medway Libraries that brought together schoolchildren, care-home residents and local artists to create new stories inspired by the neighbourhood.
Alongside community activity, the programme has supported more than 40 artists, provided professional development opportunities for creative practitioners, developed new digital resources for the sector and worked with the University of Kent on research exploring the role of creativity in health and wellbeing.
The event will celebrate the achievements of the last two years, and provide an opportunity to share learning. It will showcase projects from across the programme and provide opportunities for attendees to experience Creative Health in action.
Artists and organisations involved in the programme, including Paramjot Kaur, Kate Mechedou, Live Music Now and Icon Theatre, will share their experiences of delivering Creative Health projects and the impact they have seen within local communities.
A panel discussion will also bring together representatives from health and wellbeing, cultural partners and the voluntary sector.
Create healther, more connected communities
Cllr Nina Gurung, Portfolio Holder for Heritage, Culture and Leisure, said: “Over the past two years, the programme has demonstrated how creative activity can improve wellbeing, strengthen resilience and help people feel more connected to their communities. Whilst this event will rightly celebrate the successes of the last two years, importantly it’s a chance to bring together people from across culture, health, and community partners and spark discussion about the next chapter for creative health in Medway, and how collectively we can help create healthier, more connected communities.”