Arts and Health Foundation

About the partnership

The Arts and Health Foundation along with partners RAA and the National Rural Health Alliance are working toward the development and endorsement of a National policy on Arts and Health in Australia.

About the Arts & Health Foundation

The Arts and Health Foundation is an Australian non-profit organisation formed to promote and expand the knowledge and evidence of these benefits in order to increase arts practices in health settings and so improve the health of all Australians.

The value of the arts to health and wellbeing is now well known.  There is increasing evidence that participation in creative activities directly improves the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities -  in both the short term and long term.

National Arts and Health Policies Project

We currently have an opportunity to put the national case for the integration of arts into national health policy to the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference in November.

We have already taken the opportunity to contribute to the Federal Minister for the Arts’ review of a whole of government arts and cultural policy.

The Arts and Health Foundation invites you to share your arts and health stories and experiences to help to paint the national picture of work that is happening around the country.

The Arts and Health Foundation and its project partners - Regional Arts Australia and the National Rural Health Alliance, have collaborated with Feral Arts to create a online arts and health storytelling community at  http://ps3beta.com/community/ArtsAndHealth

Some ways you can participate via PlaceStories include:

• joining the online arts and health community and contributing to the projects.
• viewing our Call to Action by Professor Ian Hickie
• creating a digital postcard telling us “How are the arts important to the wellbeing of your community?”
• adding your stories to the growing database of arts and health practice examples from across the country.

Please, join our community and the project - make your voice heard.

Yours sincerely,
Deborah Mills
Project Director
Arts and Health Foundation
Email: policy@artshealthfoundation.org.au

Call to action by Professor Ian Hickie