BACKGROUND

From 2021-22, following the successful delivery of a pilot creative prescribing project in Langholm during lockdown, and with support from SOSE, Dumfries and Galloway Health Board Endowment Fund and The Holywood Trust, OutPost Arts carried out a significant scoping, research and development project around regional creative wellbeing potential – mapping existing creative wellbeing strategies and stakeholders, scoping opportunities, forming partnerships and identifying and co-designing next steps via engagement and consultation.

This marked a significant step forward for creative wellbeing in our region, with strategic alliances and significant agreements formed as a result. Through these new relationships, supported by Dumfries and Galloway Health Board Endowment Fund, The National Lottery Community Fund, The Holywood Trust, The Robertson Trust, and Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, we established the ‘DG Creative Wellbeing’ project in early 2023, forming a Creative Wellbeing Network, embedding a vibrant arts programme into healthcare in partnership with NHS Dumfries and Galloway, and creating a range of community-based initiatives. These efforts have had hugely meaningful impacts on the wellbeing of participants (and those who care for them), and in many cases has significantly improved their lives.

The ‘Manifesto for Creative Wellbeing in Dumfries and Galloway’ seeks to pull together learning and emerging themes from this work, creating an evidence-based foundation for future action and creativity.

OutPost Arts could not have taken these important steps forward without the help, support and trust of our funders, artists, participants, partners and supporters, and we are truly grateful for their energy, investment, understanding, cooperation, friendship and, of course – their creativity!

Being creative is an essential part of being human, and it’s one we often neglect as we age because of educational structures, life’s demands, stigma, poverty, isolation and other barriers. Human expression keeps us well!

This is a Manifesto to inspire, inform and positively disrupt the conversation about creative wellbeing in our region.

The Manifesto increases the awareness and understanding of the power and potential of incorporating creative wellbeing in our lives, speaking in plain language to increase accessibility.

We aim to express the Manifesto in new, creative and exciting ways, encouraging audiences to engage with and form their own connections to its themes and messages.

Outpost Arts will initiate this next stage by bringing together stakeholders from a range of backgrounds and specialisms to explore the Manifesto’s themes as a starting point for dialogue, learning, partnership and most importantly – to spark creativity.

It’s not just words – the Manifesto is an agenda for change, and it is for all of us.

READ THE FULL MANIFESTO BELOW

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