The arts can be beneficial. Trained artists use their craft to thoughtfully engage with people and groups in ways that help promote health and well-being. Introducing the art of creative writing, singing, or acting to vulnerable individuals can offer escapism: a way to explore feelings and emotions, an opportunity to socialise and much more. But through this work, the artists – the creative facilitators – are often introduced to challenging and complex situations. This session, led by three experienced facilitators, will explore how artists can sustain their own and each other’s well-being in health-focused art projects.  

This talk will be of interest to any writer or artist who is interested in carrying out participatory work. This can include working in schools, in the healthcare sector, with various charities, or running art workshops in communities. 

Language of the session: Welsh and English, with simultaneous translation service 

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The speakers: 

Gwennan Mair Jones is Theatr Clwyd’s Director of Creative Engagement. She leads on ambitious community projects in north-east Wales to ensure that the theatre offers shelter and boosts the well-being of everyone who gets involved in their work. Some of Theatr Clwyd’s partners for their well-being outreach work include the Social Services, Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board, and Parkinson’s Cymru. 

Patrick Jones is a poet and lyricist. He has devoted much of his career to using his craft as a poet to help others. He worked with the Forget-me-not Chorus – a project that set up choirs for people with dementia and their families, and he was poet in residence for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales working with people who suffer from mental illness, together with the doctors who treat them to explore how reading poetry and creative writing can be beneficial. 

Emma Smith-Barton has published novels for young people with Penguin Random House, and her novel The Million Pieces of Neena Gill (Penguin, 2019) was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Award, the Branford Boase Award and the Romantic Novelist’s Association Debut Romantic Novel Award 2020. With a background in teaching, she is experienced in running workshops for children and young people. More recently, she carried out a project with a group of mothers looking at birth trauma and the challenges of motherhood.