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.
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.