Art at the Start: A research consortium exploring art-based intervention to support perinatal and infant mental health.

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Art at the Start have been offering arts therapy and messy play sessions to promote the health and wellbeing of parents and 0-3 year old infants in art galleries across Scotland, supported by the Mobilising Cultural and Natural Assets to Combat Health Inequalities scheme. During our project, we have managed to reach families who don't traditionally visit art galleries and have helped parents who have had difficulties bonding with their children to connect to their children in the context of shared art making. We have evidenced positive changes in the quality of family wellbeing via questionnaires, interviews and observations of family interactions which focus on the experience of the infant. By tailoring provision to local needs and demographics, and specifically seeking to engage under-served communities (minoritized ethnic groups, those living in poverty, young mothers, infants), we have actively broken down established barriers to accessing the arts. Our project has been listed as an example of best public health practise and won several public engagement prizes. Our team are active in the UK wide movement to support infant mental health.The NHS rely on community spaces to help them provide the first line of support for families with young children who are struggling with their wellbeing, but don't yet qualify for urgent clinical care. However, there is a lack of guidance concerning how community providers and NHS stakeholders can work together to deliver early interventions effectively and sustainably. Government think-tanks across the UK agree that it is critical to improve links between community services and mental health services for infants and their families within the NHS, including testing and evaluating models for future service development. Giving children the best start in life is important, because our parents teach us how to interact with others, and the love they provide is essential for us to develop academic and social competence. Poor starts in life can be passed down through generations, and early years interventions offer a way to break this cycle. Critically, since both early relationships and access to the arts have been shown to have protective benefits for health and wellbeing throughout the lifespan, art-based early years interventions stand to have a long-term impact on the lives of the families they reach. The proposed research reflects on whether art-based approaches can be embedded within arts venues as a referral route for infant mental health provision in the UK, ensuring early access to the health benefits of arts. We propose to bring together academics working in psychology, art therapy, arts & health, arts education and midwifery with a range of non-academic stakeholders, including families, family arts and support organisations, arts galleries and NHS infant mental health teams. Led by a community parent researcher and a participation officer from a charity which supports parents, we would aim to evaluate the experiences and needs of families who may benefit from the health and wellbeing outcomes of a community embedded art & health service. Supported by an interdisciplinary team of academics and clinicians, a family arts organisation, and representatives from art galleries and third sector and NHS infant mental health teams, our research team would map existing art-based interventions for early years relationships across the UK. Case studies from two clinicians based within infant mental health teams in Scotland would help to inform the challenges of embedding such services in an NHS context. By facilitating knowledge exchange between this interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary network of academics, clinicians, families, cultural organisations and government and NHS structures, our ultimate aim is to co-produce a research 'road map' to allow for strategic reshaping of cultural assets in the service of public health, targeting the foundations of mental wellbeing.