Through its national Arts and Minds programme, the Arts Council of Wales supports projects across Wales that use creativity to improve health and wellbeing, helping to create more compassionate, welcoming and person-centred environments within healthcare settings. One of those projects, Young People’s Voices at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, is now entering its second year following successful pilot activity which brought artists into NHS waiting spaces to help ease anxiety and support young people and families ahead of appointments.
Last year, three artists – Bethany Seddon, Bill Taylor-Beales and Jen Lunn – offered creative activities that ranged from haiku writing and stained-glass artwork to designing postcards of encouragement, all while young people and their caregivers waited to be seen.
The initiative, called Young People’s Voices, brings together several teams at the health board including its Arts team, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Child and Family Psychology and Therapies Service, and its Youth Participation Panel.
With funding recently confirmed by Arts Council of Wales through its national Arts and Minds programme, the project will now enter its second year.
Mr Taylor-Beales, a visual artist who visits the waiting spaces monthly, said: “The young people and parents were welcomed with a friendly greeting from an artist who was busy creating in the corner – immediately setting up a positive distraction. I then invited them to engage in a simple creative task and 99 percent of the time it was greeted with a smile and an engagement from the young person and/or their parent.
“It became less of a waiting room and more of a chill out space to breathe out and tap out art or music or other creative activities that people wished they had kept up or were returning to. The change in atmosphere as we engaged was tangible.”
For clinicians, the impact has also been noticeable:
“The act of attending a clinic space and having a safe and welcoming adult to connect and engage with creatively, can play a huge part in calming the nervous system,” said one health board clinical psychologist. “This is a big part of the impact of this project. It affects how our young people enter clinical spaces. Having engaged with the artist beforehand, they can access appointments & therapy in a more relaxed, grounded and regulated state.”
The project was co-designed with members of the Aneurin Bevan UHB’s Youth Participation Panel, who drew from their own experiences to shape it. Parents have responded positively, saying “this is the calmest he’s been all day” and “we were so anxious about our first visit – meeting you has really helped”.
“This project shows the power of creativity in health settings,” said Dan Allen, Relationship Manager at the Arts Council of Wales. “By supporting young people to express themselves, it helps build resilience and strengthens bonds between families and clinicians, which is essential to successful outcomes.”
Young People’s Voices is a project run by Aneurin Bevan UHB with support from the Arts Council of Wales’ Arts and Minds project.
Visit ABUHB’s Evaluation Summary here: