Arts Culture Health and Wellbeing Scotland is hosting a conversation as part of a wider sector engagement programme being carried out by The College of Arts & Humanities Partnership Catalyst with a Mental Health & Wellbeing focus on the significant role of culture in supporting good mental health and wellbeing.

They are reversing a typically academic-focused approach to partnership and project development by inviting the sector to identify the challenges and opportunities for the co-creation of objectives that might be met by Arts and Humanities research. They are also shaping a framework for the wider sector to aid in the sharing of experiences, evaluating the work, improving access and building connections while identifying and addressing challenges/barriers faced by researchers, professionals, and practitioners.

The Catalyst team are particularly keen to invite you to share your views regarding the challenges and opportunities facing you, your organisations, or sectors, and to respond to themed discussions around:

· Improving access to arts for well-being – how can they evidenced the benefits, develop best practice and influence system-level change for sustainable development?

· Evidencing the benefits – how can they best evaluate and evidenced the differences arts has on mental health and well-being and articulate it to key stakeholders, policy makers and funders?

· Expressing individual experiences of mental health – where is there a need and how can this be better expressed and developed?

· Building connections people place in heritage – how can they develop participation, co-creation, community building connecting people, place and associated heritage?

The Catalyst is a design-led and partner-driven knowledge exchange programme developed at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with The Glasgow School of Art. They will be hosting a conversation with the team at the College of Arts & Humanities, University of Glasgow:

· Dr Neil McIntyre, Knowledge Exchange Associate

· Dr Lindsay Middleton, Knowledge Exchange Associate

· Dr Fraser Rowan, Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Manager

If you want to find out more and have your say then join the conversation with a range of arts, culture, health and wellbeing organisations, artists and practitioners by booking your place today.