Blog post written by Robyn Dowlen (Blog editor)
On Tuesday 20 June, the Arts Health ECRN held their first LINK event alongside the 2017 Culture, Health and Wellbeing conference in Bristol. The event took place at the Watershed in Bristol and there were 40 attendees.
The evening began at 6pm, with members arriving and having a drink whilst getting to know one another. Network Lead Daisy Fancourt welcomed members, described the aims of the network and introduced our regional representatives who were able to join us.
There were a number of activities that were available to attendees in order to break the ice, and allow network members to make suggestions about what they wanted from the network. There were a wide range of suggestions written on post-it notes which will help the network to grow and develop.
The second activity allowed those with similar interests to connect – whether it was through a particular population of interest (e.g. dementia) or research method (e.g. biological health markers). One group chose to centre their discussion on wellbeing measures, sharing information about which outcome measures were being used in research and whether these accurately captured wellbeing and quality of life. It was really interesting to hear such a range of views on which wellbeing measures should be used or whether we need to be developing outcome measures which are more appropriate for arts and health research.
Throughout the evening network members tweeted using the hashtag #artshealthlink – why not have a look at what we discussed by searching the hashtag on twitter. There were also lots of discussions about setting up regional LINK events led by our regional representatives. Be sure to regularly visit our website so that you can be the first to know when events are announced. If you are interested in becoming a regional representative, you can also apply here.
If you are interested in contributing to the blog please get in touch.