Launch

A new Sheffield Arts & Wellbeing Network is being launched with a conference event including keynote speeches from Dan Jarvis MBE, Shadow Minister for Arts & Culture, Alex Coulter, Chair of the National Alliance for Arts & Wellbeing. Open to anyone with an interest in the connections between arts and wellbeing, the network will celebrate and help publicise existing arts and wellbeing initiatives, bring people together to share ideas & resources, and develop new projects.

The Space is a new, deliberately experimental online service, managed by Arts Council England and developed in partnership with the BBC. It has been designed to give arts and culture organisations the opportunity to experiment and engage with new and existing audiences in an innovative digital environment. This pilot phase will be available from 1 May to 31 October.

The Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) and Create, the Irish national development agency for collaborative arts in social and community contexts have launched artsandhealth.ie , the first national independent arts and health website in Ireland.

The website has been developed by Create and WHAT and was initiated and funded by the Irish Arts Council, as part of its new Arts and Health Policy and Strategy published at the end of 2010.

The online database contains in-depth information about voluntary and community sector organisations that deliver public health services in London.

At present On the Radar mainly contains information about alcohol services. However, drug, mental health, healthy eating, physical activity and many others will gradually be added as the database expands.

To find our more, or to register, visit  w: www.lvsc.org.uk/otr.aspx

Youth Music is making major changes to the way it funds music provision. In order to streamline the application process and maximise the impact of its work on children and young people, the new Youth Music Programme, which launches on 3 November 2011, will consist of three key elements:

A modular structure:

Youth Music's funding will be structured around modules. Each module will focus on an issue or group of children and young people that have been identified as in need of support. Applicants will be eligible to apply for funding for multiple modules.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation has announced that it will use the money generated from last year’s sale of the composer’s Picasso portrait - Angel Fernandez de Soto - to help fund a wide range of culture, heritage and art projects.

The foundation has announced a £250,000 donation to UK charity Nordoff Robbins, which specialises in providing music therapy sessions to people suffering from autism, dementia, depression, stroke or terminal illness. It will use the money to help maintain its music therapy unit at the BRIT school in Croydon and to fund their work at the unit.