Launch

King’s College, London is launching a new MSc in Arts in Health from autumn 2019.

The Masters will aim to train people to design, evaluate and research arts interventions in healthcare. The new MSc is due to welcome its first cohort of students at the start of the 2019/20 academic year.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/Cultural/newsandviews/newsrecords/180227-King's-to-launch-a-Masters-in-Arts-in-Health.aspx

The Mayor of London has unveiled the first £1.35m awards of London Borough of Culture. Waltham Forest is the first borough to be awarded the title - for 2019, followed by Brent for 2020.

In addition, six boroughs - Barking & Dagenham, Camden, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Merton - will share a pot of £850,000 for landmark projects, which the boroughs highlighted in their entry bids.

Co-founder of 64 Million Artists and champion for the role of creativity in improving lives, Jo Hunter is seeking support for a new book on creativity and mental wellbeing.

The book will offer guidance on integrating creativity into daily life and the ways in which creative activities can support mental health. The crowdfunding campaign offers opportunities for support starting at £10.

https://unbound.com/books/creative/

Public Health England has been given the go-ahead to create a world-leading public health science campus at Harlow in Essex.

PHE Harlow, as the site will be known, is expected to employ up to 2,750 people by 2024, with scope for further expansion. The £400m campus will see PHE relocate from facilities at Porton in Wiltshire, Colindale in north London, as well as its central London headquarters to a single centre of excellence for public health research, health improvement and protection. Building work is expected to start in 2019 with phased occupation starting in 2021.

The Government has announced the development of a new civil society strategy to coordinate and improve how it interacts with the charity sector.

The Heritage Lottery Fund and Alzheimer’s UK have joined forces with a number of leading heritage organisations to launch a guide to creating dementia friendly heritage experiences. It includes practical advice from sites across the country who have been experimenting with innovative ways to engage visitors with dementia.

A group of young people have established a new online platform for people to share creative responses to their experiences of mental ill health. www.theperspectiveproject.co.uk/ hosts a range of material with the hope of breaking down stigma about mental illness especially in young adults.

A new set of free resources to inspire and support care homes to engage with music has been published by Live Music Now. Drawn together over the past two years, the new web resource includes a review of research into the impact of music on the lives of older people.

The project is a unique collaboration between 35 leading national organisations from adult social care, music and academic research. It is led by Live Music Now, Sound Sense and Canterbury Christ Church University, and funded by the Baring Foundation. It includes surveys of over 400 care home staff and musicians.

Arts Council England has published a set of guidance for arts organisations to support their development of equality action plans to improve inclusive approaches to diversity.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/equality-action-plan-guidance

The Family Arts Campaign has launched new Age-Friendly Standards, which provide guidance for cultural organisations welcoming older family members. There are already 65 early adopters of the Age-Friendly Standards including Sadler’s Wells, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and Blackpool Grand Theatre.