23 YEARS OF CREATING CONNECTION, SKILLS AND WELLBEING
Today – 7 July 2026 – Create turns 23. I can still remember the first day, at my dining room table, as though it were yesterday.
I love a celebration, and this feels like a very special and important moment for the charity, particularly at a time when the wide-ranging benefits of creativity are being increasingly recognised.
Yesterday, I visited the showcase of our “More Creative” project in the London borough of Southwark. Over seven weeks our inspirational professional dancer worked with a group of 20 adults with learning disabilities and primary schoolchildren to explore movement, storytelling and the joy of creating collaboratively. Joy was at the heart of their glorious performance, which took us through animal-filled forests to a water meadow full of colourful dancing waterlilies. Once again, I experienced the magic that happens when people come together to create.
Although so much in our world has changed since 2003, my vision on starting the charity – of a society in which everyone has access to the educational, social and life-enriching benefits of the creative arts – has stayed the same. We have always believed that access to creativity is a fundamental right, not a privilege, and the increasing inequalities in our communities mean that our work has never been more important.
It is a challenging time for the arts sector – and charities more broadly – and I am proud that Create has now delivered 17,167 workshops that have brought joy, skills, inspiration, connection and wellbeing to 50,430 of the most isolated and vulnerable children and adults across the UK. That’s equivalent to a convoy of 630 packed double decker buses!
Social prescribing is increasingly embedded in the NHS, which explicitly recommends creative and cultural activities for people with mental health issues, chronic pain, and other conditions. Creative health, which was arguably seen as a specialist topic 23 years ago, is now widely discussed in Parliament and policy circles. And this awareness continued to grow at the start of this year, with the publication of Professor Daisy Fancourt’s book “Art Cure”. Drawing on the last decade of UCL research into the arts, Fancourt makes a compelling case for the necessity of access to the arts. Create’s core belief – that people need to create – is here scientifically proven beyond doubt by evidence drawn from thousands of studies.
Fancourt argues overwhelming for the arts as the “fifth pillar of health” alongside diet, sleep, exercise, and nature. The impact of creative arts participation is measurable, producing quantifiable improvements across physical and mental health outcomes.
Here at Create, we have 23 years of compelling data demonstrating the impact of our creative arts programmes on skill building, connections, confidence and wellbeing. And we have played an important role in the debate through our own online series of “Create Conversations” roundtables. Throughout the past year, we brought together experts from academia, charities, business and the creative sector to discuss the intersection of creativity and wellbeing, AI, and leadership.
Create Week (1-7 July 2025) brought the topic of creativity and wellbeing to an even wider audience. Working with a group of partner organisations across the UK, we encouraged people to participate in creative activities for seven days, designed by our professional artists and made available for free via our website. The campaign reached 2.6 million people, doubling its impact compared to the year before.
The main focus of Create’s work remains the delivery of free, high-quality creative arts programmes across the country. Among 97 different projects in the past year, we celebrated music created by 53 disabled and non-disabled young people as part of Manchester Literature Festival in October 2025. We gave a voice to young carers from five geographical locations on Young Carers Action Day in March 2026, when they showcased their incredible artwork, drama, music and puppets. And we published two storybooks written by prisoners for their children, winning a series of prestigious awards.
I am proud of the passion, commitment, drive and energy that our incredible staff team has shown over 23 years. I am inspired by Create’s professional artists who deliver our projects. I feel privileged that we are supported by dedicated Trustees, Patrons and funding partners. I am delighted that 100% of our partner organisations during 2025 rated their Create programme “successful overall”. And I am humbled that our work has been recognised with 146 awards since 2012, including Charity of the Year in 2020.
Above all, I am thankful to the incredible children and adults that we work with, who inspire and motivate me every day. As an isolated 93-year-old told me:
“It’s something to live for, isn’t it!”
Nicky Goulder MBE, Founding Chief Executive of Create
