While virtually all our arts projects are based on an understanding of the key role that the arts can play in contributing to a person’s sense of wellbeing, we also work specifically on arts and mental health projects within the Cambridgeshire region. We started working in this area when we were contacted by the Friends of Fulbourn Hospital in 2001. The Friends were looking for an organisation that could help them with the provision of arts for mental health patients, both within the Hospital and outside; in day care centres and residential homes.

Visit The City Wakes project: our tribute to Pink Floyd founding member, Syd Barrett.

Through the support of a number of trusts and foundations, and funding from Cambridge City Council, we have been able to maintain a regular programme of arts workshops for a limited number of mental health patients within Cambridgeshire. These workshops have ranged from pottery to film. However, more recently, our main focus has been on providing music workshops that have contributed to the development of Adoreus, a Cambridge Cantata.

On the research side we were contracted, by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Mental Health Trust in 2002, to map the provision of arts resources within the region’s mental health sector. The results of this research are available on this website in our research section.