Our HERA campaign has been featured here:
WATCH ITV NEWS HERE: https://bit.ly/2LDCpF7
WATCH BBC SOUTH EAST HERE: https://bbc.in/2LIEhfZ
THANKS FOR VISITING OUR FUNDRAISING PAGE!
We need urgent help to save our Health and Arts programme - we need to match the funding grant from the Arts Council to run a bigger, better, three-year programme that can reach many more patients.
By helping us reach our year one funding goal of £101,500 we can guarantee the future of the programme.
WHAT IS HERA?
The HERA arts project at Brighton Health & Wellbeing Centre is a network of programmes using arts and creative practices that enhance the quality of life, health and wellbeing of our patients, staff and community. We provide access to high-quality arts activities for people struggling with long term mental and physical illness. The HERA project also creates an inspiring enviroment to all of our patients as they sit in our waiting room which doubles up as a Wellbeing Gallery:
There is a wealth of high quality evidence which indisputably shows the health benefits of engagement in creative practices such as singing and writing. This extends from data around improvements in lung function and motor control, to extensive evidence showing improvements in mental health and wellbeing .
Our patients tell us that Hera has helped them to develop rich and meaningful lives alongside chronic disease and in many cases helped with and maintained recovery.
Finding Your Compass was part of Year 1 of Hera and shows the creativity we deliver on the Hera project. The Finding Your Compass pilot film 2014 - Fiona Geillinger and Dr Rosaria Gracia:
The project is a UK first in offering a range of different art form activities within a GP/primary care setting, and as such offers creative activity for an extraordinarily broad range of local people ranging from the very vulnerable and those who have not tried the arts since leaving school to those with professional artistic ambitions and experience.
After a small trial, we received funding from the Arts Council and Brighton & Hove City Council to run a pilot programme from 2015 to 2017. We delivered four times our original target number of creative sessions with patients and the project was a great success. We were also able to learn what to change and improve.
We are now delighted that Arts Council England has agreed to fund a scaling up of Hera from 2018 to 2021, alongside a training programme in arts and health for health professionals called Sea Change.
We are asking our community to help raise the matched funding we need to make Hera happen!
*This crowdfunding campaign has started with the Arts Council England funding of £47,500.
THANK YOU TO ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND!
Our Hera signed THANK YOU postcard. Photograph by Hera therapist, Dan Blomfield:
ACTIVITIES OFFERED UNDER THE HERA PROJECT:
- Creative Writing and Narrative Medicine
- Photography Walks
- Visual Arts (painting, print making)
- Art Therapy
- Dance and Movement
- Singing For Better Health
- Filmmaking
- Creative Technology
- Wellbeing Gallery (that's our waiting room!)
We offer drop-in sessions, ‘tasters’, and longer programmes, which means we can support patients with a variety of interests and talents.
Our approach is non-judgmental, inclusive and enjoyable, while the quality, accessibility and safety of activities are key to the programme’s success.
Hera is being delivered by BHWC's charity, the Robin Hood Health Foundation.
OUR AIMS FOR BRIGHTON AND HOVE AND THE WIDER COMMUNITY:
- To provide access to high quality arts activities to those who are otherwise excluded due to health concerns, free of charge to participants.
- To use creative activities to deliver improved health and social outcomes for patients, and reduce social isolation
- To use the arts to create better clinicians, and integrate artist/clinician learning
- To inform research, testing insights across medicine, the arts, literature and the social sciences.
- We wish to work with NICE, CCGs and universities to establish a robust relationship model between primary care and the arts
- To share our findings with the arts community and health care providers
FINDINGS SO FAR:
- Improved physical and mental health for many participants.
- Improved ability and confidence to self-manage health conditions.
- Improved social support and friendships
- Reduced need for secondary care services like hospital appointments.
- Sustained recovery better self-reported wellbeing
- Reduced demand on GP time.
- People ENJOYED the sessions!
Our data is consistent with the findings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on arts and health, which recommends that programmes like ours should be embedded in health care.
About Brighton Health and Wellbeing Centre and the ROBIN HOOD HEALTH FOUNDATION
BHWC is one of the first NHS practices in the UK to truly integrate complementary therapies and arts activity with GP services. We were founded in 2013 as a response to the increasing pressures on the NHS, recognising that conventional medicine does not always hold all the solutions to a person's health concerns.
We believe that conventional medicine and other approaches can work together to support wellbeing. The community we serve has high numbers of people with mental health concerns, substance misuse problems and HIV, as well as a significant LGBTQI+ population, and a concentration of adults at either end of the age spectrum.
The Robin Hood Health Foundation was set up as a separate registered charity in 2016, to resource, manage and deliver arts and health work that is not currently funded by the NHS but that we know delivers benefits for patients.
PLEASE HELP US TODAY AND JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN TO FUND YEAR 2 OF THE HERA ARTS AND HEALTH PROJECT.
THANK YOU!
https://www.brightonhealthandwellbeingcentre.co.uk/healing-arts/hera
THE GOODIES GIVE AWAYS:
The Hera Deluxe bag made of grey recycled woven fabric - available in the £40 Pledge:
The Hera Shopper - available in the £25 Pledge:
Signed limited photograph print by Genevieve Smith-Nunes (unframed) - available in the £60 pledge:
Signed limited edition print by Jude Hart (unframed) - available in the £60 pledge:
Neptune in Hove has donated 2 x £50 vouchers - available in the £70 Pledge (includes the Hera shopper!)
Africa House coffee shop in London Road, Brighton, has donated 6 months worth of coffee drinking in their gorgeous new venue!! (t&c's apply) - available in the £200 Pledge.
Laurence King Publishing is an award-winning publisher of art books for adults and children, with a reputation for high quality design and commissioning world leading authors and have kindly donated the following hardback books which you can purchase with our Hera shopper bag for £50 each (books retail for approx £30).
Art Books for Kids:
Sew In Brighton Sewing School have donated a £30 voucher - www.sewinbrighton.co.uk. This reward is £30
Polpo Brighton, The Wulrus Brighton and New Stein Bistro have all donated vouchers available in the reward section.
Polpo: The Wulrus: New Steine Hotel, Bar & Bistro:
Lipstick and Gunpowder have donated a cut and blow dry worth at least £30 (the HERA Shopper package is included). This reward is £40.