Agenda item

This presentation and report from the Cultural Consortium for Wellbeing York introduces their work to the Board.  Annex A outlines how the Cultural Consortium can help to reduce inequalities in York. Annex B contains the PowerPoint slides from the presentation.

The Head of Museum Development at York Museums Trust, supported by the Cultural Consortium for Wellbeing York’s Culture and Wellbeing Co-ordinator, gave a presentation on the work of the Consortium to the Board.  The report presented to the Board included details on how the Consortium was using culture to reduce health and wellbeing inequalities in York. Annex A outlined how the Cultural Consortium could help reduce inequalities in York and  Annex B contained the PowerPoint slides from the presentation.

The Cultural Consortium for Wellbeing York was a partnership between York Museums Trust, National Centre for Early Music, York Theatre Royal, Pilot Theatre, Accessible Arts & Media, Converge (University of York St. John), York Explore and York@Large. The partnership sought to encourage participation in those who may not have assessed arts and culture due to perceptions that it is not for them or due to health, social or financial barriers to participation.

The Chair invited questions following the presentation. In response to questions raised by the Board, the Head of Museum Development and Culture and Wellbeing Co-ordinator explained that:

·         In order to demonstrate the impact of the work being undertaken by the Consortium, it would be working with York CVS to look at what activities were working and it was trying to use industry recognised outcomes. It was highlighted that the Consortium was a pilot programme and that all partners were community based. Those partners would examine barriers to access to the activities and were looking at opportunities to work with people in their own homes. It was noted that the Consortium would be using the tools from the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale.

·        To enable the further development of volunteering, all members in the partnership worked with volunteers and a number of organisations were looking at how to increase the involvement of non-traditional volunteers.

·        The ambitions of the Consortium included looking at the reasons for non engagement, finding out what need there was (for example what activities were needed), and co-creation, collaboration and conversation between social prescribing and local area teams.

·        The Health and Wellbeing Board could help the Consortium by providing advice and guidance on how to produce data to meet the needs of health and care organisations.

·        As part of future development, the Consortium would like to increase the number of organisations in the partnership, and continue conversations with external organisations on what the partnership could deliver.

The Board thanked the Head of Museum Development and Culture and Wellbeing Co-ordinator for their presentation and welcomed the progress made by the pilot project.

Resolved: That

                             i.        The Health and Wellbeing Board considered and discussed the presentation and report from the Consortium including the following recommendations contained within Annex A:

1.   Cultural Wellbeing is integrated in policy making, written into council strategies and seen as a partner in the referral and delivery of wellbeing services in the city.

2.   For Arts organisations to become more integrated into Public Health and Voluntary Sector strategic frameworks for Mental Health, helping to alleviate NHS winter pressures through increased health and wellbeing and to deliver some of the relevant findings from the York Older People’s Survey.

3.   To build on the foundation of the pilot programme into a longer-term approach with Arts Council support.

4.   For Culture and Wellbeing York to be a partner in service design to ensure that arts and culture play their role in the health and wellbeing agenda.

5.   As arts and cultural specialists, we would be able to help align the sector to Health and Wellbeing strategies.We offer the board support through the procurement process to ensure that any arts and culture commissions are of the highest quality (from a cultural perspective).

                            ii.        In relation to the five recommendations above the Health and Wellbeing Board receive a report prepared by Council officers detailing work already happening that links to the recommendations the Cultural Consortium make; particularly around some of the corporate issues such as commissioning.

                           iii.        The report be referred to the Cultural Leaders’ Group for consideration and also to the new group being led by Cllr Hayes.

                          iv.        The Health and Wellbeing Board receive a written report back from the Consortium outlining the work being undertaken, how this work fits in with work being undertaken by City of York Council officers and identifies gaps and areas that need strengthening; to be presented at a future meeting.

Reason:     To explore how cultural commissioning can help reduce inequalities within the city.