Support Hub Opportunity:
Artists’ Peer to Peer Mental Health Groups.
About Support Hub
From 2023 - 2026 Arts & Health Hub will be running a project called the Support Hub which is a range of support programmes for artists exploring health and wellbeing in their practice. This includes:
Artists’ peer to peer mental health groups.
This page shows you details about our artists’ peer to peer mental health groups. For other opportunities, click the links above.
Applications now open - Extended Deadline June 30th @ 5pm
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Applications now open - Extended Deadline June 30th @ 5pm 〰️
Use the links below to jump to specific sections:
How to Apply
Carefully read the information below which outlines more information about the specific opportunity.
When you’re ready, scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on the button for each opportunity to open the online application form - this is how you apply.
Please note that you can only apply for one opportunity. If you were successful in previous years, you can only apply for a different programme than the one that you participated in.
Applications for round 2 are now open until our extended deadline of June 30th @ 5pm. We are unable to accept applications after this time.
Note that as a small project funded organisation we are unable to give feedback for unsuccessful applicants.
Are you unsure if this opportunity is for you?
As a Black and brown, disability majority-led organisation we strongly encourage applicants from: ethnically diverse backgrounds; those with lived experience of ill health, disability and/or neurodivergency; LGBTQIA+ artists; those from low income backgrounds and other underrepresented artists in the arts and health sector to apply. You have to be aged 18+ and UK based to apply.
If you are feeling unsure if this opportunity is for you please do reach out to us for clarification or to have a chat, by contacting info@artsandhealthhub.org. We have set aside short half hour sessions (first come first served) to chat to you about any questions that you may have about the opportunity.
Is there help available for the application process?
Email info@artsandhealthhub.org if you want to discuss this further. Please note, if you need someone to physically fill out the form with you, get in touch as Jennifer can support this. Jennifer is unable to answer the questions on your behalf and would only be supporting with uploading information to the form. If you already have an access worker who knows and communicates with you well, we have a small budget to cover costs of them supporting you with the form.
Travel Support
If your financial situation is a barrier to you travelling to and from in person sessions or you need a support worker/guardian to help you travel and/or to takes notes in sessions, please either contact us for a discussion in advance of your application, or note this in your application. We have a limited access budget available and will do our best to support your needs. Please email info@artsandhealthhub.org.
Can I apply in another way than the online form?
You can also send us an audio or video application, provided that you answer the same applications in the form. You can use a service like WeTransfer to send us your audio/video application, which can be sent to info@artsandhealthhub.org.
Watch our Q&A session.
Easy Read Documents
Click the links below to open easy read documents for more information about the Support Hub project and the peer to peer mental health group opportunity.
The Opportunity.
About the artists’ peer to peer mental health groups
The Support Hub is supporting artists with mild mental health challenges to engage in peer to peer mental health groups across London, Manchester and nationally online. One group will run in person in London at Queercircle, one group will run in person at 42nd Street, and one will run online for national applicants.
The aim of these groups is to support participatory artists with lived experience to consider how their work impacts their mental health and vice versa, through creative activities, conversation and peer to peer support. The groups are not personal therapy groups but allow you to consider how to better take care of your mental health within the context of your creative practice. They will be a mix of talking and creative activities.
Each group will meet once a month for six months. Each session is themed, offering the opportunity for artists to respond to particular challenges through the process of making artwork and discussing. The session is run by two people: a facilitator and a therapist, with importance on peer to peer support offered to one another in the group. Sessions are two and a half hours long.
Artists are expected to attend all six sessions over the six months. The groups will each have a maximum of 8 participants.
What does a typical session look like?
The sessions are a mixture of making and creating art and facilitated therapeutic discussions specifically in relation to your creative practice. Each session is structured around a theme. Previous examples include sessions on boundaries, care, and others.
Sessions usually start with a group check-in, followed by an exploration of the theme with initial responses and discussion. There is time in the session to make some artwork in response to your thoughts around the theme, within the context of your creative practice, and discussions focusing on what you made and why. Each group runs slightly differently depending on the facilitators but follows the general structure above.
Taking care of yourself in these sessions
We recognise that some of the content that we explore can be difficult. These groups are not personal therapy groups, but a chance for you to explore how your mental health affects your creative practice. It’s important that you think about self resourcing your own support, including:
Thinking about what you can do before the session to make sure that you are relaxed;
Thinking about what you need during the session - whether that’s to be more connected to others or being a bit quieter. You might want to make sure that you have a snack and a drink with you.
What will you do after the sessions for yourself? Perhaps making some artwork will help you to consolidate your thoughts, otherwise going for a walk or cooking something nice for yourself could help. You may need some time after these sessions to process things that were discussed or arose.
Session Dates
You must be able to commit to all of the session dates for the opportunity that you apply for. Attending the sessions is important to help build trust and commitment in the group and helps to ensure that people feel safe and supported across the six months.
London Sessions @ Queer Circle
Friday, September 6th 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Friday, October 11th 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Friday, November 8th 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Friday, December 6th 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Friday, January 10th 2025, 2pm - 4.30pm
Friday, Feb 14th 2025, 2pm - 4.30pm
Manchester Sessions @ 42nd Street
Wednesday, September 11th 2024, 10am - 12.30pm
Wednesday, October 9th 2024, 10am - 12.30pm
Wednesday, November 13th 2024, 10am - 12.30pm
Wednesday, December 11th 2024, 10am - 12.30pm
Wednesday, January 8th 2025, 10am - 12.30pm
Wednesday, February 12th 2025, 10am - 12.30pm
Online Sessions on Zoom
Tuesday, September 3rd 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Tuesday, October 1st 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Tuesday, November 5th 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Tuesday, December 3rd 2024, 2pm - 4.30pm
Tuesday, January 7th 2025, 2pm - 4.30pm
Tuesday, February 4th 2025, 2pm - 4.30pm
Meet the Facilitators: London Sessions
Jessica Mitchell
Jessica Mitchell and is a counsellor and psychotherapist based in south London. Jessica offer her clients a safe and non-judgemental space that enables them to explore their experiences and feelings in a way that feels comfortable for them.
Jessica is also a practicing artist exploring themes of identity, sexuality and meaning and regularly collaborates with other artists in exhibitions and projects using a variety of mediums such as photography, drawing and fabrics. In 2019, Jessica facilitated a workshop for people affected by cancer where she enabled the participants to self-express through the medium of photography.
More about Jessica:
Website: https://www.thegoldfinchpractice.com
Daniel Regan
Daniel Regan is a photographic artist specialising in exploring complex and difficult emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experiences. His photographic work focuses on themes of wellbeing and brokers dialogue around often taboo topics such as grief, self injury, suicide and racism.
Daniel has extensive experience in delivering socially engaged projects with vulnerable groups in clinical and community settings. Previously Daniel worked as the Director of Free Space Project, a pioneering charity in primary care, commissioning and delivering arts projects to over 30,000 patients.
Daniel is the Executive Director of the Arts & Health Hub.
Find out more about Daniel:
Meet the Facilitators: Manchester Sessions
Sangita Mistry
Sangita taught within the Special Educational Needs settings before training as an art psychotherapist. She is a photographer, working with community groups and a consultant working with not for profit organisations supporting emerging artists on an international artist in residence programme. Currently, Sangita delivers art therapy for a number of charities across Manchester and the North West. These include;
Maggie’s - a charity supporting anyone affected by cancer, based within the grounds of The Christie’s Hospital, Sangita is able to provide individual support to centre users.
As the art therapist for Gordon Moody, a charity supporting men with a gambling addiction, Sangita delivers group art therapy to individuals attending their fourteen-week residential treatment programme.
Her work with Greater Manchester Rape Crisis, involves delivering group art therapy to the South Asian Women’s Group. This enables working therapeutically with highly sensitive issues surrounding
sexual violence.
More about Sangita:
Website: https://www.sangitamistry.co.uk
Jennifer Gilbert
Jennifer is a Manchester-based gallerist, freelance producer, and curator, working with self-taught, disabled, neurodivergent, deaf and overlooked artists. In 2017 she launched Jennifer Lauren Gallery to showcase and empower artists internationally, having previously managed a national arts charity for under-represented artists. Through her work, Jennifer hopes to: demystify what is regarded as art, continue to challenge the stigma surrounding this field, and to re-look at how work is displayed and written about.
In her freelance role, Jennifer helps disabled, deaf and neurodivergent artists with their professional development, alongside providing mentoring and other support. Jennifer also does consultancy work alongside galleries, museums and organisations.
More about Jennifer:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j_lgallery/
Meet the Facilitators: Online Sessions
Roshmi Lovatt
Roshmi worked in the Arts and Health field before training as an Arts Psychotherapist. She is the Founder and Director of Bodhispace Ltd, a service in Milton Keynes offering counselling, psychotherapy, arts therapies, supervision and reflective practice to local communities and professionals. Her particular interest is to support professionals to work sustainably in jobs which might induce burn out, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. This has included work with community and participatory artists, where Roshmi has developed a trauma informed approach to creative health practice. Roshmi has a relational, embodied, creative and social justice led model of working which validates the whole individual within their context.
Find out more about Roshmi:
Daniel Regan
Daniel Regan is a photographic artist specialising in exploring complex and difficult emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experiences. His photographic work focuses on themes of wellbeing and brokers dialogue around often taboo topics such as grief, self injury, suicide and racism.
Daniel has extensive experience in delivering socially engaged projects with vulnerable groups in clinical and community settings. Previously Daniel worked as the Director of Free Space Project, a pioneering charity in primary care, commissioning and delivering arts projects to over 30,000 patients.
Daniel is the Executive Director of the Arts & Health Hub.
Find out more about Daniel:
Eligibility.
This opportunity is open to:
Artists aged 18 and above (there is no upper limit).
Artists working in any medium that have a participatory practice (i.e a practice that involves working with others).
Artists who have mild mental health challenges and are not actively in crisis, that are able to participate in activities in a group setting.
Our London group is only open to artists based in London.
Our Manchester group is only open to artists based in Greater Manchester.
Our online group is open to artists across the UK. If you are also based in London or Greater Manchester but would struggle to get to the in-person sessions you can apply for the online group.
What Makes a Good Application?
The criteria that we use to look at applications is as follows:
That you are eligible for the opportunity (see above), for example that you are based in London for the London groups.
That your practice explores health and wellbeing in some form.
That you have a participatory art practice, e.g. you show how you are working with others.
That you clearly describe your art practice and participatory art practice, so that we understand who you are as an artist, and how you work with others.
That you clearly describe how the sessions might support you to better understand your mental health in relation to your art practice.
Frequently Asked Questions.
If you have questions that are not answered below then please email us at info@artsandhealthhub.org. We may be able to support you with a short phone call/Zoom to answer questions too. We have limited 30 minute slots so please do contact us to check for availability.
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The Arts & Health Hub supports artists that explore health, wellbeing and what it means to be human. This could be:
making work about your own experiences of health and illness, or issues around identity.
working creatively with communities whose physical and mental health may be affected by illness / societal oppression / health inequalities etc.
If you are still unsure and would like to have a brief chat with us to clarify, please email info@artsandhealthhub.org.
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By this we mean artists that directly engage with audiences as part of the creative process. This could be leading workshops with particular community groups or co-producing works for an exhibition.
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Email info@artsandhealthhub.org if you want to discuss this further. Please note, if you need someone to physically fill out the form with you, get in touch as Jennifer can support this. Jennifer is unable to answer the questions on your behalf and would only be supporting with uploading information to the form. If you already have an access worker who knows and communicates with you well, we have a small budget to cover costs of them supporting you with the form.
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No - this programme is for those with mild mental health challenges in relation to their creative practice and the effect each has on the other. We do have open calls for professional development groups that you can apply for.
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We want you, and everyone else in the group, to feel comfortable and safe in what they share and discuss. Unfortunately we cannot support people that are actively experiencing a crisis and would be better suited to clinical support. Whilst these sessions may be therapeutic in their nature, they are not a substitute for clinical support or therapy. This group may be challenging and triggering at times and we can only support those that feel in a position to advocate for their own self-care.
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From our pilot project we found that this type of group is an opportunity to meet likeminded people who face similar mental health challenges. It can be a space to share practical challenges about being an artist with challenges, and also gain potential solutions from others in the group. Sometimes we can touch on difficult material so it’s important that as a group you form an agreement about how to be respectful, and support one another and yourselves. The facilitator and therapist will do this with you all in the first session. If you have any other questions or concerns please email info@artsandhealthhub.org.
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For those operating in person basic art materials will be provided. For those attending online the activities are designed to be as accessible as possible, but access to basic materials like pens/pencils, paper etc can be beneficial.
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No - this programme is for group peer to peer mental health support.
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Yes.
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The deadline for all opportunities in round 2 has been extended to 5pm on 30th June 2024. We are unable to accept applications after this.
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We know that we will receive more applications than we are able to offer places for.
Our panel actively look at curating groups that have a diverse set of participants, meaning that we do not select people with the most experience, but people from a variety of backgrounds that would benefit from this opportunity.
Three people will be making the selections. These will be:
Daniel Regan: Artist & Executive Director, Arts & Health Hub
Jennifer Gilbert: Gallerist & Freelance Producer and Curator
Mariama Attah: Curator: Touring & Loans at Autograph APB
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We will let you know if you have been selected or not. This will be between 22nd - 26th July.
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Due to our small team who work part-time, we are unable to provide feedback if you are not selected.
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No. You can only apply for one opportunity from the 4 opportunities. We encourage you to think about what feels most important to you and relevant to your practice development.
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No.
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If you were successful last year you can apply - but only for a different programme than the one you participated in.
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We anticipate that there will be between 4-8 people, depending on who applies.
Submit an Application.
Ensure you are clear on which group you are applying for - in person in London, in person in Greater Manchester, or online.
Click the correct button below to open the application form.
Applications for round 2 are now open until our extended deadline of June 30th @ 5pm.
We cannot accept submissions after this date.
You can also send us an audio or video application, provided that you answer the same applications in the form. You can use a service like WeTransfer to send us your audio/video application, which can be sent to info@artsandhealthhub.org.
If you are in London:
If you are in Greater Manchester:
If you are not in London or Greater Manchester and would like to access the national online opportunity:
Thank you.
The Support Hub is generously supported by Arts Council England, Baring Foundation and the Greater London Authority.
