LAHF News

The increasingly popular social networking site Facebook has welcomed the world of arts and health with the launch of both LAHF and Be Creative Be Well’s pages. Please sign up as a friend and keep up to date with events, news and opportunities and also let us know what you are up to.

In May LAHF received its charitable status from the Charities Commission. We hope that this will enable us to work more visibly and effectively towards our goal of working with practitioners from both the arts and healthcare sectors to promote, research, improve and develop greater awareness of the benefits of the arts on health and wellbeing.

On 19^th January, Arts Council England (ACE) opened their consultation on future priorities for the arts. ACE identified areas for development in the arts over the next ten years and asked for views to inform its long term strategy and next set of investment decisions.

London Arts in Health Forum and Breakthrough have organised an event to offer support to artists and small arts organisations looking to raise their profile and build a better relationship with the media. This event will aim to help with making contact with the media, building relationships with the press and opinion formers and handling negative press coverage.

Thanks to all of you (over 200) who took the time to fill in our online questionnaire last month. The results are really helpful to us as we try to deliver the best service possible for the arts in health sector. It was great to hear that so many of you value the newsletter and also found our events helpful.

LAHF has moved from our desk in London Bridge to our very own little office in Islington, just off Essex Road. Our new address is 1^st Floor, 5 St Peters Street, London N1 8JD. Email addresses remain the same as does our 0845 602 0825 telephone number - a new London number will be available soon.

LAHF is planning a series of events in 2010 aimed to help arts in health practitioners to better promote themselves and to raise awareness of the sector. These events will include workshops on relating to the press and toolkits offering advice and support on advocating for support. Full details of these events will be published in January.

You will recently have received a survey from LAHF, this is something we began in 2008 as a way of making sure the content of our newsletters and events are tailored to what you want. From suggestions made by respondents to the last survey we are in the process of redesigning the LAHF website.

LAHF is also planning an event on 15^th March 2010 from 12-6pm to explore the role of the arts in dementia care.