Wandsworth’s Arts & Culture Service is launching a new Arts for Health & Wellbeing programme, to add a cultural offer to the existing Social Prescribing programme in the borough.

How Arts for Health and Wellbeing fit into the wider Social Prescribing context:

Social Prescribing is a holistic approach to healthcare that brings together the social and medical models of health and wellness. It provides a formal pathway for health providers to address the diverse determinants of health, using the familiar and trusted environments of GP practices, health visitors and other primary care professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services.

In Wandsworth, two providers are already offering Social Prescribing programmes: Enable Leisure & Culture and Surrey Physio. Wandsworth’s Arts and Culture Service are now seeking to complement those programmes with a cultural offer, in partnership with Wandsworth Public Health and Wandsworth Integrated Care System. If you would like your activity to be included in their database, please complete this short form.

Do you have an existing project that you would like to put forward as part of the Arts for Health & Wellbeing offer?

Link Workers working with local GP surgeries are able to sign-post patients to specific projects across the borough. If you would like your activity to be included in their database, please complete the short Social Prescribing Sign Up form below and return it to [email protected] and [email protected] at your earliest convenience.

Do you need support to increase the capacity of an existing activity or fund new activity?

The Arts for Health & Wellbeing Fund aims to support projects that will use arts & culture to tackle health & wellbeing issues in community settings, addressing barriers to engagement and equality and enabling people to play an active part in their care.

You can apply for awards between £500 and £10,000 to commission a new activity or support the capacity of an existing activity.

Applications are open to organisations, partnerships and individuals that demonstrate how they meet the criteria of the fund, provided the proposed activity takes place between November 2022 and April 2024, is fully budgeted and is open to new referrals from professionals working in primary care settings such as GPs, practice nurses and link workers.

The Arts for Health & Wellbeing Fund will be awarded in 2 stages:

Stage 1: projects that take place in the North of the borough and in the Roehampton ward.
Closed: 06/10/2022 find out about the four successful organisations awarded funding here.

Stage 2: projects that take place in the following wards: Tooting Broadway, Tooting Bec, Furzedown, Wandle, South Balham and Trinity.
Deadline: 28/11/2022 at 10am

Applicants do not have to be based in Wandsworth. However, the proposal must take place in the targeted wards and directly benefit their residents.

More information and contact details

If you have any questions please contact Lelia Greci, Arts & Culture Programme & Partnerships Manager: [email protected]

Please find more information on Wandsworth Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy here.