It seems that every month, I am compelled to mention yet more social, political or environmental turbulence that we as individuals, and collectively as communities, have to deal with, locally, nationally and internationally.

As I write this, the cabinet are meeting to discuss the ludicrous mess that is Brexit, firefighters in California continue to brave the worst forest-fires in over 100 years, and locally, many of our communities are trying to fathom out ways of living following another round of devastating cuts from the local authority. This may well sound like hyperbole, scare-mongering, and alarmism, but ‘on the ground’, in our experience, there are genuine causes for concern that are seriously affecting people’s mental health and wellbeing and the functioning of their communities.

We very much welcome the health and social care secretary’s recent announcement that prevention will have as great an emphasis as cure in the NHS’s long-term plan. This is something we, and many other colleagues, have advocated for over a long period of time. Our highly impactful Creative Wellbeing Programme aims to feed into this preventative agenda and is seen by many as an invaluable part of their lives.

As an organisation, we have developed further programmes that we hope, will become invaluable parts of people’s lives and their careers, improving their wellbeing, and supporting them to be effective socially engaged artists. Our newly designed co|Create programme involves four strands including Creative Inspiration, Enterprise Works, Safe Practice and a new resilience programme.

The Creative Resilience Programme explores themes of personal resilience and develops tools for use in your life and your career through Creativity Works’ own evidence-based model. It has been developed with artists and business experts alike, and is aimed at individual artists and the employees of businesses.

For more details on all of these initiatives, take a look in this months newsletter.

To counter the negativity that may have oozed from the first couple of paragraphs of this blog, I would like to mention a fantastic project that I have discovered (although far too late!) that is dealing with some of society’s knottiness. ‘Bank Job’ is led by filmmaker Dan Edelstyn and artist Hilary Powell who together run Optimistic Foundation. I think it is a sublimely conceived project, full of creativity, social engagement and sustainability. Enjoy! https://bankjob.pictures/bank/