WIREDGOV

Three Tower Hamlets-based organisations have been awarded a £275,000 National Lottery Place Partnership Grant for an ambitious new project tackling youth health inequality across the borough.

The HEART Project is a two-year programme that will explore the powerful connection between creative engagement and health and wellbeing. Led by Spotlight Creative Youth Space, housing association Poplar HARCA’s dedicated service for young people, the initiative builds on the sector-leading organisation’s decade of experience in creatively focused youth work to deliver meaningful, borough-wide impact.

The initiative will be delivered in partnership with Queen Mary University of London and Kazzum Arts, generating vital insights to inform how creative health services are designed and delivered - particularly for young people facing significant socioeconomic challenges.

Poppy Green, Spotlight’s HEART Project Lead, said: ‘We believe that access to the arts is a social justice issue. This project will enable us to explore new approaches and partnerships, hear from young people and platform their perspectives to strengthen creative health services in Tower Hamlets.’

The HEART Project will harness the cultural capacity of Spotlight, a creatively focused youth space with extensive state of the art on-site resources in music, performance, visual art, media and more, to deliver a two-year programme of activity and research across Tower Hamlets.

Using artist-led approaches and youth voice methodologies and underpinned by research and support from Queen Mary University of London, the initiative aims to drive a step change in how inclusive and relevant creative health provision is developed for 11–19 year olds, and up to 25-year-olds with SEND, across the borough.  

The programme will be delivered across four main workstreams utilising a number of local networks and partners:  

1. Creative Health Agency (CHA): a training opportunity for young people interested in arts, culture & health & wellbeing to gain leadership, research & campaigning skills by forming a consultative body to embed youth voice in decision-making about creative health services for young people in Tower Hamlets.
2. Commissioned Creative Consultations: Experienced artists will develop creative consultations across the borough using methods such as podcasting & forum theatre to engage diverse groups of young people with their health and wellbeing.
3. Participatory Action Research (PAR): Identified groups of Young People who experience health inequities, Health care professionals, artists & researchers will develop creative Participatory Action Research projects that generate new knowledge & increase engagement & understanding between Health care professionals and young people.
4. Upskilling and Artist Training: Project delivery partners Kazzum Arts, Health Tree and London Arts and Health will develop training that supports local artists to upskill & develop their work in creative health with young people. 

Michelle Walker, London Area Director, Arts Council England, said:

“Place Partnerships are all about creating a step-change in local cultural provision through a range of committed partners working together in their community. We hope this project will demonstrate the radical potential of culture and creativity to drive real change, and we can’t wait to see how it evolves.”

Spotlight is sector-leading in the provision of creative health youth work, and well positioned to lead this place-based partnership work with:

1. Wide reach in London: already connecting with 3,000 young people annually through state-of-the-art youth hubs and engaging 1,800 more through street-based outreach services.  
2. An integrated approach: utilising their Housing Health Spot resource, an in-house GP service exclusively for young people, alongside creative youth services.
3. Proven impact: demonstrated through their 2023 Creative Youth Work report in collaboration with Queen Mary University.

The HEART Project supports the NHS’s renewed commitment to community-based care and social prescribing, while directly addressing the findings of Creative Health: The Arts for Health & Wellbeing – a report that demonstrates how creative activities can significantly reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, and lead to better patient outcomes. Through an integrated youth service and community-led approach, Spotlight and their partners will work to deliver a shift in practice, in collaboration with the NHS. The HEART Project will play a key role in delivering services and generating research that will help shape the future of creative health provision for young people across the country.