A new training course for busy Arts and Health Professionals who wish to develop and run successful arts in health programmes has been launched by Aesop and Canterbury Christ Church University.
Aesop Institute 2019 is aimed at those who wish to devise and run successful arts and health programmes and will enable professionals from both sectors to develop the values and beliefs, knowledge, skills and competencies required to achieve this.
In a speech earlier this month to the King’s Fund, Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock, spoke of the life-enhancing benefits of the arts and social activities, and how as a society we should be making greater use of their power to improve the nation’s health and wellbeing.
The Health and Social Care Secretary said the arts are an ‘indispensable tool’ for the NHS, adding that social prescribing can be used to “help shape our health and social care system” and should be seen as fundamental to preventing the over-use of medicines and offer a cost-effective treatment that is “better for patients, and better for society”.
Aesop’s Chief Executive and Founder, Tim Joss, said: “I was in the room when Matt Hancock spoke and asked him how to make the indispensable tool of the arts available to all. He started listing elements of the Aesop Institute curriculum! We clearly need many more health and arts professionals expert in linking these two sectors. We need artistic quality and health improvement advancing hand in hand. And we need university accreditation to boost the status and quality of this important work.”
Professor Stephen Clift, Director of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health said: “I am delighted that Canterbury Christ Church University is collaborating with Aesop in creating this innovative module in arts, health and wellbeing. It will give both arts and health professionals an opportunity to explore issues of direct relevance to their ongoing work and development in this field, and gain university accreditation.”
This newly designed course will start with a three-day residential school in Folkestone in May 2019, with a two-day follow-up residential in Canterbury in September 2019. Find out more about Aesop Institute 2019 and how to apply.
