Participant Group: Young patients

THE CREATIVE ARTS AND MENTAL HEALTH

tHE CREATIVE ARTS and Mental Health

At Create, we get to see first-hand how the creative arts enhance individuals’ wellbeing. This was reflected in our 2023/24 social value report: 100% of our participants said that attending Create projects improved their quality of life; and 98% of them reported improved self-esteem.

Our findings reflect recent research from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) which found that “people who took part in arts and crafts reported higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, as well as a stronger sense that life is worthwhile.” Moreover, ARU concluded that “helping people to access affordable opportunities for creativity could be a major boost to public mental health.”

This aligns with Create’s mission of enable those who are isolated or marginalised to take part in free high quality creative arts experiences. Below, we hear some of their stories.

FINDING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL RELIEF THROUGH ART

“Being creative has been really great. It’s been great to express our emotions through body movement and dance. Some days when I have got here, I have felt really emotional. I’m literally holding in tears. And at the end, I feel lighter and better because I’ve moved my body and I’ve been able to come away from my responsibilities and roles at home. I’ve learnt that for me personally, body movement is very important. I used to take dance classes and I really used to enjoy it. But everything stopped and I’ve felt very stagnant. So doing something like this is really important. And I feel more motivated when I’m within a group. I just love the way that movement allows you to release lots of energy from your body as well. It just allows you to move and release that stress in a way. It’s been really nice for my mental health. It certainly helps, 100%” – Nimisha, adult carer, Harrow

“I loved being creative. It took me away physically, mentally and emotionally from my caring role. I’m very tied down by my caring, because I’m a 24/7 carer with just an hour and a half of help each day. But creating things takes us away from ourselves. When you’re involved in creating, you can’t think about how much your feet ache or how your brain is in a fuzz. It’s being able to use my brain and body differently and in a stimulating way.” – Bridget, adult carer, Nottingham

“[These workshops have] been really uplifting for my mood. I suffer with a low mood, but doing the artwork gives me moments where I feel like my mind is creating space. I always compare it to a glass jar, and mine’s really full, overflowing and cracked. I’ve got no more space to do anything. But when I come here and do art, it empties some of that jar. And I can use that empty space to do my caring role.” – Anilla, adult carer, Manchester.

“Being creative felt good because sometimes everything is stressful, especially as I have assessments coming up. It’s been nice to be able to do something else besides that. Creativity has really helped with my mental health, especially doing art with other people. It’s helped me take my mind off of everything and focus on something else for a little while.” – Jack, young carer, Uxbridge

BUILDING LONG-TERM MENTAL HEALTH TOOLS THROUGH THE ARTS

“That’s where this music project has been so important to me because it’s brought creativity back into my life. I have an appointment with it. And my main challenge at the moment is [that] I need to think about myself more. This is a good starting point to enabling me, hopefully, to take some of those further steps that I know I need to do.” – Bridget, adult carer, Nottingham

“I call it my ‘me time’. Because I’m given a chance to come and do what I want to do, and just be free and I’m not being judged. And the fact that it’s creative is good because my creativity has just gotten to spark up. I would recommend it to others as well. I even told my doctor about it and she was really happy I had something to help with my mental health and all the things I’ve got going on at the moment. I really loved the ‘yes, and’ [activity], where somebody says something and you continue with ‘yes, and’. That was both therapeutic and creative for me. It’s actually helped me in my personal life. It has given me a positive outlook by saying ‘yes, and’ instead of going negative and spiralling down. It’s been good in that regard.” – Yvonne, older adult, Islington

“Taking part in this project, I learned that art can be quite relaxing and therapeutic and that it can also help with pain. Obviously, I rely on painkillers, but art can calm your body down, which is quite nice. Projects like these can help people in hospital see a different perspective. We can see the beauty in the very mundane things through art.” Blair, young psychiatric hospital patient, Manchester

HOW CREATIVITY HAS IMPROVED BLAIR’S MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

HOW CREATIVITY HAS IMPROVED BLAIR’S MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

creative:tandem is our multi-artform project with young people admitted to mental health units due to serious conditions including psychotic, depressive, anxiety and eating disorders, self-harm or suicidal thinking. For five days in August 2024, Create artist Sarah Grant delivered visual art workshops at Galaxy House, an inpatient service in Manchester helping young people with a range of conditions including eating disorders, Pervasive Arousal Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), OCD and Psychosis.

We spoke to Blair (17) about her experience on this project. Blair was admitted to Galaxy House in May 2024.

Blair’s Story

“I have PAWS, which is Pervasive Arousal Withdrawal Syndrome, classified under FND (Functional Neurological Disorder). I have been in Galaxy House for nearly 18 weeks. I had appendicitis last year and then I was unable to walk and paralysed. We thought I was going to get better, so I was discharged. I had carers, all of that. But then my symptoms just regressed. I had a nasogastric tube and they were looking for external rehabilitation places. Galaxy House fitted my needs, it’s a very specialised facility. My symptoms have definitely improved here and I’ve obtained a much better quality of life.”

THE VISUAL ART WORKSHOP

“We’ve been doing various creative tasks for the week. We did some acrylic painting, art using nature as inspiration, experimental watercolours, clay modelling with terracotta clay, and spray painting. We were free to do whatever inspired us. I liked the free reign given to the young people and how it like dispels the conception that art has to be one specific thing.”

“Working as a group was quite fun. I think it showed the group’s dynamics in a very different way. Art can harness what others are feeling, which can be quite satisfying.”

THE joys of creating

“Being creative has made me feel very fulfilled because I can achieve something tangible, which is not linked to something academic. I think it’s good to have a safe space where you can contribute different creative ideas that don’t have to be intellectually judged.

“[When creating] I feel satisfied as it’s relaxing and very enjoyable.”

“It’s been nice that we had a whole week dedicated to different forms of art.”

TAKEAWAYS

“Taking part in this project, I learned that art can be quite relaxing and therapeutic and that it can also help with pain. Obviously, I rely on painkillers, but art can calm your body down, which is quite nice.”

“Projects like these can help people in hospital see a different perspective. We can see the beauty in the very mundane things through art. And it differentiates our days. It’s also nice informal environment. We can interact with nurses more casually, because they’re not writing notes on you.”

creative:tandem is funded by The Prudence Trust

Meet Frankie, A creative:tandem participant

Artwork from creative tandem at Aquarius Ward, a project for young people living with mental illness

Meet Frankie, a creative:tandem participant

Artwork from creative tandem at Aquarius Ward, a project for young people living with mental illness

In August 2022, our professional artist Sam Haynes delivered a five-day visual arts residency at Aquarius Ward in South West London, an inpatient service for young people aged 12-18 experiencing a mental health crisis.

The residency was part of creative:tandem, our multi-artform project empowering young people admitted to mental health units due to serious conditions, including psychotic or depressive episodes, anxiety and eating disorders, self-harm or suicidal thinking.

We spoke to Frankie, a young patient who has taken part in multiple Create projects.

“Being creative helps us to do something productive and meaningful.”

Frankie

“I’ve been taking part in a Create visual art project with an artist called Sam Haynes. We’ve done block printing, collage, painting, making masks, a whole range of artistic things. During the project I’ve created four tote bags, all with dinosaur designs because I love dinosaurs. I started making a mask too, and I did some collage on paper with lots of different magazine cuttings.

“At home, I do lots of art. I embroidered a frog on a tote bag at home. It was the first bit of embroidery I did so I was really proud of it because it was actually quite good. I get very bored of things so I switch between so many different hobbies: embroidery, sewing, watercolour, origami. In hospital, though, we don’t have as many chances to be creative.

“I enjoy taking part in the Create workshops because it gives me something to do while in hospital. It takes up some of our time and we get to do something productive and meaningful. It was nicer doing the project in the room downstairs as it gives us a break from the ward. It feels more normal than being on a hospital ward.

“It’s important for people to do creative things in hospital because it gives them something to do other than stare at the TV. It keeps us engaged with something and gives us a product at the end that we can take home once we leave this place. It helps us make some positive memories.”

This project is supported by The Prudence Trust

Our work with young hospital patients

Artwork from creative tandem at Aquarius Ward, a project for young people living with mental illness

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MEET NATALIA

MEET NATALIA

MEET NATALIA

In February 2022, our professional artist Filipe Sousa delivered a five-day music residency at Aquarius Ward in South West London, an inpatient service for young people aged 12-18 experiencing a mental health crisis.

The residency was part of creative:tandem, our multi-artform project empowering young people admitted to mental health units due to serious conditions, including psychotic or depressive episodes, anxiety and eating disorders, self-harm or suicidal thinking.

We spoke to Natalia, a young patient who rediscovered her love for singing and song writing during the project.

“If I wasn’t in this project, I probably wouldn’t have rediscovered song writing, but when the workshops are finished I’ll probably continue writing, which is cool.”

natalia

“Throughout this project we’ve created a lot of songs, whether it’s covers or originals, an interpretation of a piece or a soundscape. We’ve been exploring percussion and sometimes using our voice, or strings, so the project was a mix and match of lots of instruments and types and styles of music.

“I got to play lots of instruments. I played ukulele, djembe drums, shakers, maracas, and I tried keyboard. The ukulele was my favourite. It’s more of a high-pitched string and it’s quite high and jolly, which is similar to my singing style so it suits me better than other lower-pitched instruments.

“Being creative feels nice because, especially at school, there’s a very academic focus. Even when you do things like music and art, it’s following a syllabus so you can’t really experiment. You have to learn something. I think it’s very good to be expressive, to give everything a go and just have some fun, which is quite hard when you’re in wards like this. Music in this environment is different to English or maths lessons. You can just be you and experiment and do what’s right for you.”

connecting with others

“I enjoyed working in a group, but in a place like this not everyone wants to engage with the project. Even for me there were moments when I just wanted to go upstairs. Not because the project was bad, but because, especially with music, it can be overwhelming for long periods of time. I also have ADHD so two-and-a-half hours is quite a long time. When other participants wanted to engage it was good because people just had a good time. There were a few of us that came to the project every day and engaged, and that was nice. We just tried to make things work and create a piece together.

“I don’t have any time to be expressive, except for when I sing in the shower at home. It’s good to have an experience like this”

natalia

“There were nice moments when I felt connected to other people. Moments where I was like, we’ve all made something together. It bonds you. It was cool to think, “I made something.”  It makes you feel pride, proud of what you’ve achieved, even if you’re not a great musician. Creating something, even a little bit, makes you realise you’ve done something, you’ve contributed.”

rediscovering old passions

“I don’t often have the chance to be creative. At school, I dropped music and art and I’m just focusing on my GCSE subjects. So I don’t have any time to be expressive, except for when I sing in the shower at home. It’s good to have an experience like this, because at school it doesn’t happen.

“I’ve definitely learnt about myself on this project. I’ve learnt that I like playing the ukulele, and I’ve remembered that I like singing! When I was little I used to write songs and it feels really nostalgic. The project reminded me how fun it is to write and sing songs. If I wasn’t on this project, I probably wouldn’t have rediscovered song writing. When the workshops are finished I’ll probably continue writing, which is cool.

“Creativity makes you feel proud of what you’ve achieved.”

natalia

“Having the chance to be creative is important because in daily life you don’t have time to be creative, get your hands dirty, let your hair down. I think it’s really nice to have an opportunity to be yourself and to be free, because life is busy and we’re always saying we’ll do things, but things get pushed back. It’s nice to have time in the day actually to enjoy yourself and not just be aiming for the next thing, doing the next bit of schoolwork or the next homework. Especially in this generation who spend a lot of time using screens. It’s really good to remind young people what it’s like not to be glued to your phone 24/7 and to be creative and be yourself without worrying what other people think.”  

You can listen to the piece of music Natalia created with her group below.

Supported by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery

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Meet Morgan and Jessie

ceramics from our mental health project with young people

Meet Morgan and Jessie

ceramics from our mental health project with young people

creative:tandem is our multi-artform programme empowering children and young people who have a serious mental health illness.

For four years, we have been delivering creative arts projects at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit at Maudsley Hospital in South London. Snowsfields is an open adolescent unit offering mental health care for adolescents with a serious mental illness who require hospital admission.

Our professional artists have been using creativity to help these young patients develop their creative and social skills, which enables self-expression and increases confidence and self-esteem. This year, for the first time, we have expanded the project to young people on the Bethlem Adolescent Unit in Beckenham. Both hospitals are part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM).

“It’s good to do something creative so you can express yourself through art, and you never know, you might be good at it.”

Jessie, A Participant

Our artists have already led workshops in visual art, photography and ceramics since April, with music and jewellery-making to come in the next few months.

In January 2021, it was reported that children being referred to the NHS with serious mental health problems reached a record high, with 4,615 per 100,000 children being referred. This was reportedly up nearly 20% on the previous year. Our partnership with the incredible team at SLAM has never been more important.

After our recent ceramics project, we spoke to two participants about their experiences.

MEET MORGAN

“We were making pottery with clay, and we could make pretty much whatever we wanted. We learnt different ways to make what we wanted. I made ‘autism bowls’, as well as lots of mushrooms and a soap dish. Basically, an autism bowl is a portion bowl. Lots of autistic people don’t like their food touching.

“Being creative is a good distraction. It’s fun. Sometimes it’s fun to do stuff with your hands instead of writing everything. It’s also nice to see new people. On the ward there’s a lot of drama at the moment, but because we’re just doing clay there’s not much drama here.

“I do creative things usually at least once a week on the ward, and then you can do your own stuff whenever you want. At home I made a lamp out of clay. It was a mushroom lamp. Do you know how expensive mushroom lamps are? Very. My mum had one because they were popular in the 1980s when she was growing up. She showed me and I was like ‘Wow they’re so cool’, and I went on eBay and they’re like £100. I was like ‘I could buy two packs of clay for £10 and make this’, so I did.”

MEET JESSIE

“We’ve been learning how to use clay and different techniques like “quilling”, which is used to build bigger things. I’ve also been making characters.

“It was my first time. At first, I was a bit nervous but then I felt happier and more comfortable. The Create staff and artist were really nice and lovely so I enjoyed it. You made it more fun.

“At first, I didn’t really talk to one of the people in the group, and by making clay [together] we started to talk more, and then I guess we became friends.

“I don’t normally do creative things. It’s good to do something creative so you can express yourself through art, and you never know, you might be good at it. You could have a skill you never knew you had. I’ve learnt that I’m kind of good at making things with clay.”

Read our interview with Dr Richard Corrigall, consultant adolescent psychiatrist at Snowsfields

Read our interview with two occupational therapists at Snowsfields

Read two more case studies from creative:tandem

creative:tandem is supported by:

postcode community trust logo

John Horniman’s Children’s Trust

The Fitton Trust

ceramics from our mental health project with young people

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Create artist Rachel McGivern on supporting creativity and wellbeing in community settings

Rachel McGivern

Create artist Rachel McGivern on supporting creativity and wellbeing in community settings

Rachel McGivern

To mark Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2021, we spoke to our visual artist, Rachel McGivern, about her experience of delivering creative projects in community settings, particularly our creative:tandem project with patients at Snowsfields, an adolescent mental health unit in South London. 

“I’ve always really enjoyed art. Even at school, it was the subject where I could just have a bit more freedom and explore creativity. When I was at university studying illustration, I realised I really enjoyed working with people and exploring creative activities. I feel like I get quite a lot from facilitating workshops, such as the conversations, meeting new people and seeing different points of view.

“My work falls within the umbrella of visual arts. I don’t work in one art form, I kind of spread out. That might be printmaking, weaving or sculpture. I work very much with groups, thinking about how we can share these skills, have an engaging experience with different participants and support their wellbeing. I took part in Create’s Nurturing Talent programme a couple of years ago. That was a really great experience. It taught me how to work with different community groups and helped me gain an understanding of the needs of each group and to bring that into my participatory practice.

Rachel McGivern talks about delivering arts projects in community settings

Supporting creativity online via Create Live!

“I’ve enjoyed delivering online workshops with Create during the pandemic via Create Live!. It’s a whole new way of working. I’ve had to readapt some of the activities and think about how they can translate online. Since I’m quite materials driven, I’ve enjoyed the challenge of thinking about using everyday things and making things in new ways using items from the recycling bin. Adapting my approach to bring that to different groups has been a really positive experience.

“I think creativity is really valuable to everyone. It gives us the time and space to explore an idea without the pressure of it being anything other than an idea and enjoy just the free flow of it.”

Rachel McGivern

“The creative:tandem project at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit was really interesting. Although we were working online, it almost felt like we were in a studio setup. Everyone was having a little bit of conversation, but very much getting on with their own personal project and exploration of the same activity, and being able to take it in any direction that they wanted to, facilitated by the staff on site. You could use the same equipment and the same materials in totally different ways. For the weaving session, for example, one of the participants preferred wrapping instead of weaving; another really liked the actual process of weaving as more of a structured thing. They created this massive loom and started weaving on that. We also had a session where they decorated their own bags with some fabric sprays and stencils, based on this idea of putting your own stamp on an item.

Rachel McGivern on our ITV Creates project

“The technology made it a bit difficult for me to have a direct conversation with the participants, but it felt like we were communicating through making. One of the young people was leaving the centre the day the bag decorating session took place so they were really happy to be able to take something away. Another described the sessions as ‘beautifully calm’, which was very nice.

“I think creativity is really valuable to everyone. It gives us the time and space to explore an idea without the pressure of it being anything other than an idea and enjoy just the free flow of it. I think some of the activities I do have an outcome, because it’s really nice to have that as a memory; but mostly, I’m really interested in the process, and the experience of making something. That’s why I love workshops. It’s more about the time and space to experiment and do something, try something new, challenge yourself and feel that pride of learning something new. It brings so much happiness.”

Rachel McGivern talks about her experience of working with Create

Read more about creative:tandem

Nurturing Talent

Find out more about our programme for emerging artists like Rachel

artwork by young people living with mental illness

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Using creativity to help young people with mental health illnesses

a sculpture made by a young person living with mental health illnesses

Using Creativity to help young people with mental health illnesses

a sculpture made by a young person living with mental health illnesses

creative:tandem is our multi-artform programme empowering children and young people who have a serious mental health illness. For four years, we have been delivering projects at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit at Maudsley Hospital in South London. Our professional artists have been using creativity to help young patients develop their artwork and social skills, a creative means of increasing self-expression, self-esteem and confidence.

After a short pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, the project resumed this year over the Easter holidays via our Create Live! delivery mechanism over Zoom.

We spoke to Dionne Monarch, Lead Occupational Therapist Inpatient CAMHS and Day Patient Co-ordinator at Snowsfields, and Charlotte Ellis, Occupational Therapy Apprentice, about their work at Snowsfields, the value of creativity for the young people on the ward, and their experiences of Create.

“For somebody who is struggling to focus, being creative can be really centering”

Charlotte Ellis

Who do you work with?

Charlotte: We work with young people aged 13 to 18, with a range of diagnoses and symptoms. We often have admissions who have attempted to take their own life and feel like they can’t control those urges. We have young people with symptoms of psychosis, who may be experiencing delusions or unseen stimuli, and some with really low mood – very low depressions, lack of motivation to eat, lack of motivation to get up. We also have young people who are admitted with enduring manic episodes, and others with OCD-like symptoms. They come to us when they can no longer continue as normal and need a break for some treatment.

Dionne: At any one time, we don’t necessarily know who’s going to come through the door. They’re often the most unwell young people that you’ll come across, because they need to be in hospital. They might come against their will. These days, we see a lot more self-harm, and suicidal young people, things like eating disorders, OCD; and young people who struggle with relationships, who have often had a lot of trauma in their life.

a bracelet made by a young person living with mental health illnesses
A bracelet made by a young person at Snowsfields during a Create project

HOW DOES BEING CREATIVE BENEFIT THEM?

Dionne: I have worked with adolescents for about 21 years now, so I’ve seen a lot of young people over that time. I noticed very early on how creative they were. With young people, they don’t always have the language to describe what’s going on for them. They don’t know how to put it into words. But often they can do it through a creative route. The more tools you give them to be able to express what’s going on, to talk to you about what’s going on for them, the better.

Charlotte: Art groups are always really popular on the ward. There’s less expectation involved, as opposed to having a very formal conversation about how they’re feeling. When using materials like clay – we’ve done Create workshops with clay before, and jewellery – it’s very sensory orientated. They might not even create something at the end of it, it’s just about using the materials, and experimenting with them and feeling them in your hand and having a new experience. For somebody who is struggling to focus, it can be really centering. It can also bring on a huge sense of achievement when they do complete something. When they learn a new skill. The ward can be quite a routine and confining place: we ask the young people to stick to a schedule: you wake up at this time, you have medication at this time, you eat at this time and you eat the option of food we’ve given you. A lot of choice is taken away from them. But in creativity, they’re given so much choice to embrace.

Dionne: Each year we’ve had about five Create projects over the holiday periods. The holidays when you’re in hospital are really long: you’re stuck in hospital and all your friends are outside doing nice things. So the Create projects are ideal because we can offer them something a little bit special. When we get offered things like this, we jump at them. We have a regular programme that we provide, but it’s always special when you can add things to it, and work with professional artists. Someone coming from the outside and offering them some expertise really adds to their experience.

WHAT DID YOU GET UP TO DURING THE CREATIVE:TANDEM PROJECT THIS EASTER?

Charlotte: It was a four-day project and, because of the pandemic, we had the artists on a big projector screen with two iPads at either end. We did something different every day. We did a paper project at the beginning, where it’s one picture on one side and one picture on the other side. This was really fun, because it allowed a lot of freedom. We had a young person who just wanted to draw and draw and draw and draw. This is the first group he came to on the ward, and everyone was really impressed with how long he could sit down and focus on just drawing.

Read this case study

On the second day we decorated tote bags with spray paint and stencils. Some of the young people were very measured, and some got very experimental with all the materials. It was really nice, they had opportunities to be creative in different ways and how they wanted to do it. And the artists were really good at allowing them to express themselves, which is really key in an environment where lots of people struggle with lots of different symptoms.

The next day, we made sketchbooks, and the young people were allowed to fill them with whatever they wanted. You don’t often get given a notepad and told you can fill it in one day. So they enjoyed that.

On the last day we did weaving, which was really cool. It was a brand new skill for a lot of the young people. And quite a delicate one. This was really great. When the session was over, some of the young people stayed for another hour, and kept weaving. One of our young people really took that on and continued to do it.

weaving made by a young person living with mental health illnesses
An example of weaving during the Easter creative:tandem workshop

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT CREATE’S WORK?

Dionne: I think Create is amazing, I really do. I have three organisations that I would never not want to be in contact with: The Young Vic, Hospital Rooms and Create. They’re my top three I’ve ever worked with in my 21 years. To be able to work with Create, it gives us something to look forward to, it transforms our programme, it takes it to another level. I don’t worry anymore about the holidays, because I know we’re going to be doing amazing things. As an organisation it’s just so well run and managed. I always have trust in Create, I know that everybody’s well trained and very professional. It means that we can relax a little bit because we know that Create is going to take the lead, and it’s going to be really high quality. And we know that the young people are always going to engage with it.

Charlotte: It is so valuable, having professional artists who come in and share their skills with our young people. It makes them feel special. We have so many young people with aspirations of being creative or having careers in the creative industry. By meeting artists who are making a career out of it, and who really love it, they see it as something that they can accomplish themselves. The materials we get are really important too. That might sound like a small thing, but our budget is really small. Being able to offer young people quality materials, and a lot of them, so they can do more than one – if they want to make more than one pot in a day, they can, they can make four or five. It just shows them how valued they are.

Read two case studies from our creative:tandem project

Read an interview with Dr Richard Corrigall from Snowsfields

creative:tandem is supported by:

postcode community trust logo

John Horniman’s Children’s Trust
The Fitton Trust

a sculpture made by a young person living with mental health illnesses

Support our work

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Donation Total: £25.00

Case studies: two young people living with mental illness

artwork by young people living with mental illness
artwork by young people living with mental illness

CASE STUDIES: TWO YOUNG PEOPLE LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

creative:tandem is our multi-artform programme empowering children and young people who have a serious mental health illness.

For four years, we have been delivering projects at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit at Maudsley Hospital in South London. Our professional artists have been using creativity to help young patients develop their artwork and social skills, a creative means of increasing self-expression, self-esteem and confidence.

Here two occupational therapists tell us about the project’s impact on participants.

artwork by young people living with mental illness
An “agamograph” from the first day of the Easter workshops at Snowsfields, 2021

Case study 1

Told to us by Charlotte Ellis, Occupational Therapy Apprentice

“It allowed him to focus, and gave him an opportunity to build relationships.”

“During the Easter project with Create [in 2021, via Zoom], we had a new admission. We invited him and he came in. He was taking in some instruction, but not all of it. But he saw the materials and was like, ‘I’m just going to take this and this and this and this. And I’m going to draw and draw and draw.’

“We saw that he was absorbing more than we thought, because he was occasionally answering questions from the artist. That was day one, and he showed off his work and was very proud. He loved holding it up to the camera and showing the artist what he’d done. 

“Then on day two, [when we were] making the tote bags, he much more followed the brief, and stayed for longer. He was spraying the bags. And he was very creative again. The bag was too wet for him to touch because it was covered in paint, so we put it in the cupboard, and he’d forgotten the next day. Then we gave it back to him and the joy was wonderful. During the week, every art piece he did, he put in his bag, and then he walked around the ward with it, very proud of all the stuff he’d achieved.

artwork by young people living with mental illness
One of the tote bag stencils from day two of the Easter project at Snowsfields, 2021

“By the end of the week, he was sitting down, he was engaging with his peers who he’d been unable to form relationships with at the beginning, because he was so unwell. Having the shared experience had built a rapport with his peers – and drinking the cups of tea. He’d gone from being able to sit down for about 15-20 minutes to do that first drawing to joining in with sessions for the full two hours.

“He was saying at the end of the week how amazing it had all been and how he really loved making the bag in particular. That was his absolute favourite. He uses the word amazing a lot. ‘It was amazing. It’s really amazing. It’s just so wonderful.’ He was saying how he’d really enjoyed just sitting with others, and being creative and getting to know each other, but not having to talk and just being with each other.

“It really allowed him to focus, gave him some outlet, but also gave him an opportunity to build relationships with other young people. And he was really proud of what he’d accomplished during the week.”

Case study 2

Told to us by Dionne Monarch, Lead Occupational Therapist Inpatient CAMHS and Day Patient Co-ordinator

artwork by young people living with mental illness

“There was one girl, she was really struggling. As well as having a low mood, she also had ADHD, so she used to find it really hard to join in and stay focused. I don’t know if you’ve ever met anybody with ADHD, but it can be a real struggle to concentrate and stick with something. Often they’ll come and be like, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’, and leave.

“This girl took part in the first photography project we did with Create, and she was really good at it. I think Create’s photographer realised that she had a real skill. This was good for her self-esteem, but it also made her want to stick at it. It was really engaging her, and the project was different every day, which kept her interest.

“She said it really helped her to focus, to notice things and to slow down, which was a skill that was really hard for her with ADHD.”

“She got better and better at it. Mindfulness gets used a lot in mental health but she talked about photography in a very mindful way. She said it really helped her to focus, to notice things and to slow down, which was a skill that was really hard for her with ADHD.

“Because she was so good at it, and we wanted her to continue, we put in for some money from the Simon Walker fund through the Maudsley charity. The fund helps people with projects or with interests, to be able to use them in a kind of rehabilitation way. We managed to get her the money to get a camera of her own. And she was delighted. Her family didn’t have much money and she had little siblings who often took up all the time and attention. She always had to share everything with them. This was brilliant because it was something of her own, and she was delighted that she had something just for her.”

Read our interview with Dionne and Charlotte

Read an interview with Dr Richard Corrigall from Snowsfields

creative:tandem is supported by:

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John Horniman’s Children’s Trust
The Fitton Trust

artwork by young people living with mental illness

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Help us give a voice to those who don’t have one

creative tandem
creative tandem

HELP US GIVE A VOICE TO THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE ONE

creative tandem

I took this image whilst visiting one of our creative arts projects at a hospital in south London. There we work with young people who have a serious mental illness, just one of the many groups of vulnerable children and adults who we work with across the UK.

The day I visited, our professional artist was leading a ceramics workshop with the theme of self-expression. All the young people had self-harming cuts on their wrists, visible signs of an inner pain that they had no other way to express. That’s where Create comes in.

At Snowsfields Adolescent Unit at Maudsley Hospital, our creative:tandem project is designed to relieve stress, allow creative self-expression and give young patients the opportunity to interact socially with one another and the staff who care for them, building a sense of self-worth.

The Voiceless child

The sculpture of the voiceless child, created by one of these young patients, is a powerful reminder of why I started Create and the vital role that the creative arts can play in enhancing wellbeing and giving a voice to those who feel they don’t have one.

I founded the charity 16 years ago at my dining room table with the vision of using the creative arts to help create a fairer, more caring, more inclusive society. Create has since become the UK’s leading charity empowering lives through the creative arts. Our professional artists run around 50 projects a year that empower the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children and adults across the UK.

If you would like to support us directly, or become more involved, please click here.

Nicky Goulder
Founding Chief Executive, Create

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Mental health and creativity: Dr Richard Corrigall’s perspective

mental health and creativity - an image from our creative tandem project
mental health and creativity - an image from our creative tandem project

MENTAL HEALTH AND CREATIVITY: DR RICHARD CORRIGALL’S PERSPECTIVE

Dr Richard Corrigall, a consultant adolescent psychiatrist at Snowsfields, believes that creativity can have tangible benefits on mental health.

“Mental health problems is thinking about yourself as being difficult or troublesome. To recover is therefore to restore yourself, and helping someone do that can feel enormously satisfying as a doctor, particularly when working with teenagers: they’re at the beginning of their lives and are beginning to become independent, new people.”

mental health and creativity - an image from our creative tandem project
A painting made by a participant on our creative:tandem project

With self-esteem in mind, Create devised the creative:tandem project for patients at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit at Maudsley Hospital in South London. The institution is an open unit offering mental health care for adolescents with a serious mental illness who require hospital admission. Run by Create’s professional artists, creative:tandem is a multi-art form project, which focuses on building confidence.

“Our patients at Snowsfields are people for whom outpatient care is not safe or sustainable. Mostly it’s crisis admissions; a big chunk tends to be self-harming of a serious nature, suicide-related. Typically patients come in with emotionally unstable personality disorder, as in difficult mood changes and complicated social pressures. Those with psychosis and psychotic-related illnesses are another big group.

“With any mental health care, the key elements are biological, psychological and social. They’re all extremely important, it’s not that there’s just one area you need to be focusing on. Variety is what I’ve always been keen on. It’s very important to have the medical stuff and the diagnosis and prescribing, but that should fit into the broader objective of helping people to restore their lives in a rich way. It’s not just saying “These symptoms have gone away” – they’ve restored their real lives.

“Imagine you’ve got a mental illness, you’ve been in hospital – you can be very self-destructive or self-critical. So we try to restore some kind of faith and self-esteem, and I think creative things can be really good at that.”

Dr Richard Corrigall
richard corrigall mental health and creativity
A sculpture made by a creative:tandem participant at Snowsfields

“Sometimes we have to make strong recommendations about medications which some patients can be quite resistant to. But I think having that dialogue can be more positive if you’ve given a young person the opportunity to express their feelings in different ways. You’ve demonstrated that you have real respect for them as a complicated individual, rather than just being a doctor saying: “You’ve got to do this”.

“Over the years, I’ve been prone to depressive episodes myself. In 2013 it got really severe, to the point of breakdown. When I recovered and felt optimism and interest again, after going through loads of time being negative and self-critical, I went to an art talk. One artist who was talked about was a person who’d been a mental health service user herself, and when I saw some of her art I was hugely inspired. It was related to her mental health crisis and stuff she’d been through. I really related to her art; I could understand what it meant. And then that gave me the idea of suddenly playing around with art.

“Since then I’ve been more and more interested in art. It does feel a very reassuring, healthy thing. Even the difficult things I’d been through became part of what helped with the creative expression. Which is another fascinating thing: mental health can obviously be unpleasant and disturbing, but it can also be enriching. When you see other people’s work, sometimes the things they’re able to communicate can be astonishing.

“Art can be drawing contradictory things together, which you could say is what consciousness is like. The world around us is incredibly complicated. All of our thinking is a bit of an oversimplification because it has to be. Sometimes creative things get to the depth and can connect with something that seems quite profound. Having said that, people can also use it in a very trivial way. It’s not right or wrong, it doesn’t have to have profound meaning necessarily. Sometimes it can be just doodling, it can just be relaxing. It inspires social functioning, how to get on with and relate to other people, problem solving.

“One young patient here had anorexia. She was clearly very talented at art and liked doing it, but she was very critical of her drawing and wanted it to be perfect. That illustrated the perfectionism that can relate to anorexia. We talked about how perfectionism can affect people and her trying a different approach, so she tried an impulsive, slightly random style of making art. That wasn’t her typical style, but it related in a metaphorical way to some of her psychological issues. She began using her detailed skills creatively but not getting overwhelmed by it, just in a nice straightforward way, and she was really quite thrilled by it. She actually went on to get a degree in art.”

To learn more about the work of Snowfields Adolescent Unit, read this blog or visit their website.

richard corrigall mental health and creativity

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