Welcome to our North Ayrshire Mental Health Arts Festival site!
Our festival runs each year in October but our team work all year planning and designing creative projects and encouraging community involvement and participation.
In North Ayrshire we believe the promotion of creative arts is essential in supporting mental health and wellbeing and provides us with opportunities to engage with people within our communities that may not have done so using traditional methods.
Incorporating the creative arts into our every day practice provides the opportunity for individuals to explore mental health themes that can be difficult to approach and express themselves, experience peer support and importantly challenge stigma and discrimination.
Our festival is open to everyone in our community and we hope you enjoy finding more about what we do here regularly.
Recent posts
- Not an Artist but Taking Time to Reflect By Karen Lee, Health Improvement Officer Last year, I wrote about how I don’t really see myself as a creative person but how the arts are still part of my everyday life. Watching films, listening to music, reading, taking photos all play a role in how I look after my mental wellbeing. This year’s theme of reflection made meContinue reading “Not an Artist but Taking Time to Reflect “
- Could you get involved in our community takeover trail this year?To register your event, community takeover idea fill in the form here https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/ht5HEc3Bkx
- Reflecting back to plan the year aheadWe’ve got loads of awesome ideas we can’t wait to share with you, but until then, why not check out our flip book from last year for some inspiration? You can find it here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/396d1292a7.html. Although our festival is North Ayrshire-based, you will notice that over the years we have welcomed a growing number ofContinue reading “Reflecting back to plan the year ahead”
About us
Our North Ayrshire mental health arts festival team is made up of partners from North Ayrshire Health & Social Care Partnership, North Ayrshire Council, NHS Ayrshire and Arran and third sector organisations. In addition we have a range of supporting artists, technical staff and volunteers all of whom help us to deliver a programme of events and projects each year.
Our joint working approach means we can utilise the skills and expertise of all those involved ensuring the festival is accessible to all and responds to the needs of our communities, services and supports.
We work closely with the Mental Health Foundation who run the National festival programme with regional partners. Connecting with other programmes across Scotland allows us to show case our work on a larger platform and continue to promote the importance of this work we all take great pride in.
Our North Ayrshire festival is now in its 3rd year with previous years themes being around ‘Revolution’ and ‘in/Visible’.
North Ayrshire Mental Health Arts Festival 