Healing Arts - Public Mental Health
This engaging session brought together national leaders, practitioners, and lived experience voices to explore how creative approaches can support mental health, reduce inequalities, and strengthen prevention across Birmingham and beyond.
⚠️ A content warning was provided at the start, as the session included sensitive themes.
Key Highlights
Creative Health & Prevention
- The session explored how creative approaches can promote good mental health, and play a vital role in early intervention, prevention and recovery.
National Insight
- Andy Bell, CEO of the Centre for Mental Health, explored why creative approaches are increasingly recognised as essential to improving mental health outcomes.
A Mentally Healthy Birmingham
- Joe Merriman, Service Lead – Mental Health and Wellbeing, Birmingham Public Health, shared how creative arts support the Creating a Mentally Healthy City Strategy and local ambition.
Clinical vs Community Practice
- Russell Wall, CEO of Arts Therapies UK, explored the relationship between clinical therapies and community-based creative approaches—and why both matter.
Learning from Workers After Experiences of Burnout, Moral Injury or PTSD: Dr Angela Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist and Director at Trauma Informed Community Action
- Working in the public or charitable sectors can give people much meaning and purpose in their lives. However, when work harms them, finding routes out of those situations isn't always easy. Attendees heard from the results of creative non-fiction workshops about how to create and rediscover rewarding working lives.
New Research: Creativity & Suicide Recovery
- Dr Angela Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist and Director at Trauma Informed Community Action, presented emerging research examining how creative arts support recovery following suicide attempts among healthcare workers. This research offered important insight into how creative approaches can complement traditional support and strengthen recovery pathways.
Who attended?
- Public health professionals
- Mental health practitioners
- VCFSE and community organisations
- Creative practitioners and artists
- Anyone interested in mental wellbeing and prevention
Register now!
