This Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re reflecting on the theme of community and how taking action for ourselves and each other can support better mental health.
At Culture in Common, our creative health projects and clubs create welcoming spaces where people can connect, build confidence, and improve their wellbeing through creativity. From music and movement to storytelling and play, these sessions help reduce isolation and foster a sense of belonging.
We’re spotlighting our creative club, The Parenthood – Delivered by Wakey Wakey ARTS, in partnership with Fluid Motion Theatre Company and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
From February-April this year, Culture in Common funded a six-week course of one-hour per week creative play sessions designed for Young Parents under 25 and their under 2s in Totton, as part of our Creative Health Commissions Programme. Each session featured 40 mins of structured content, including seated singing and sensory play, and moving and dancing to music. The sessions came to a natural close with a themed book, a light-experience, bubble play and a goodbye song. All participants were invited to stay on to play, chat and take advantage of refreshments, with the aim of providing them with a safe and supportive space to share trials, triumphs and parenting hacks, with like-minded peers.
As a cohort of people more likely to have experienced age-related discrimination and therefore exclusion from mainstream provision, the project primarily aimed to reduce social isolation and to improve the wellbeing of those taking part, as well as to encourage the use of arts and play as a tool to improve mental health (for both adults and children) outside of the course.
Over the six weeks, 13 children and 16 adults experienced the sessions and all participants who returned end of course feedback said that the sessions had an impact on them: ‘I’ve come away from here with things to try at home’ and that it’s been good for ‘getting out of the house/good for mental health’.
Family Nurse Donna Burkhardt also commented:
“The clients that have attended are ones that normally struggle with their confidence and were isolated, so this has made a massive difference to them and their baby. This is something they would not have done if it had not been a group for their own age group. All the clients have said they will attend again and have already missed it not being there. They felt it was a safe place for them to go, and this is really crucial for this client group where they have experienced trauma in their own lives.”
Thanks to ongoing funding from Fluid Motion Theatre Company and Culture in Common, The Parenthood will recommence as a weekly session at 1.30pm on 4th June, at Totton Creative Hub.
Sign up to sessions via Fluid Motion Theatre 👉 https://wakeywakeyarts.org/the-motherhood/
