Creative Manchester invites researchers, practitioners, policy leaders and community partners to the Creative Health Symposium 2025, part of Healthier Futures Fortnight. This one-day event will explore the expanding role of creativity in health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on mental health support for young people.
Building on the success of the 2024 symposium, this year’s programme brings together voices from across Greater Manchester and beyond to examine how creative health can address health inequalities through community-led, culturally rooted approaches.
Programme Highlights:
🔹 Panel Discussion: Creative Health & Young People’s Mental Health
Artists, researchers and frontline practitioners will explore how creative interventions are helping young people manage mental health challenges – and how this work is shaping practice and policy.
🔹 Greater Manchester Creative Health Place Partnership
Colleagues from this pioneering initiative will share updates on their work supporting residents to live well through culture, creativity, and collaboration. Their approach is reshaping how community assets are mobilised to improve population health.
🔹 Creative Workshop with Cartwheel Arts
Cartwheel Arts will lead an interactive session drawing on their longstanding experience in community participation and socially engaged art in Rochdale and across Greater Manchester.
Background and Context:
Since the 2017 publication of Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing, momentum around creative health has grown across research, policy and practice. Creative Manchester has played a leading role in this space, supporting the launch of the Greater Manchester Creative Health Strategy in 2022 and advancing research into interdisciplinary and place-based approaches.
Projects like Organisations of Hope have mapped creative health activity across the region, contributing to the national UKRI programme Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities.
Who Should Attend:
- Researchers in health, creativity, and wellbeing
- Cultural and community organisations
- Health and social care professionals
- Policymakers and local authorities
- Students, educators and public health advocates
