Arts4Us - Working Together to Scale up Place-Based Arts Initiatives that Support the Mental Health of Children and Young People

儿童和青少年正在经历一场严重的心理健康危机，威胁着他们的未来。根深蒂固的健康不平等使这一危机长期存在，需要立即采取行动。该项目将促进当地艺术活动中的最佳实践，以支持残疾人的各种MH需求，从而使他们能够更好地控制自己的生活。通过支持残疾人心理健康，该项目将满足国民保健服务的一个重要优先事项，有助于解决影响他们生活的健康不平等问题。我们将借鉴“蓝调艺术”（AH/W 007983/1）的成功经验，该项目获得了澳大利亚人权委员会对该项目第一阶段的资助，并成功地在西北部扩大了基于证据的创造性心理干预的使用。我们还将利用25年以上从事艺术活动的记录，以及我们广泛的合作制作经验。因此，共同创作将成为这项工作的核心。我们将重点关注9-13岁的青少年，这是一个在从童年过渡到青春期早期时出现MH问题的重大风险的群体。我们希望共同创作能使艺术家们参与到这项旨在产生新的、可扩展的证据的研究中来，这些证据涉及：（A）如何获得最能支持艺术家们心理健康的艺术活动;（B）如何评估满足艺术家们不同心理健康需求的艺术活动;（B）如何评估艺术家们的心理健康水平。（三）如何让更多青少年受惠于艺术活动。我们会建立一个数码平台，让青少年、他们的家人、有关机构和服务，更容易接触以实证为本的本地艺术活动。我们将通过确定良好的本地艺术实践来实现这一目标，这些实践可以满足学生的各种MH需求，特别是那些经常代表性不足的学生。将雇用六名创意健康助理在健康不平等现象明显的地区工作，并在社区合作伙伴和现有的社会处方联系工作者之间建立当地合作。他们还将与研究团队合作，提供方便和可持续的艺术活动，从而绕过当地的障碍。兰开夏郡和南坎布里亚郡和柴郡和默西护理），医疗领导和医疗主任的卫生部，国民保健服务信托基金，学校和社区组织将鼓励内部和跨系统的合作，使一个商定的评估框架的最佳实践艺术活动的发展。这将有助于简化获得艺术治疗用途的途径，并在西北部及其他地区扩大和采用研究成果。最后，我们将与我们的46个非学术性国家和国际合作者开发和分享项目成果，为解决健康不平等问题做出积极贡献，使生活在任何地方的残疾人受益。

Children and young people (CYP) are experiencing a significant mental health (MH) crisis that is threatening their future. Deeply rooted health inequalities perpetuate this crisis and call for immediate action. This project will promote easy access to best practice in local arts activities that support the diverse MH needs of CYP and thus enable them to take better control of their lives. By supporting the MH of CYP the project will meet an important NHS priority contributing towards tackling the health inequalities affecting their lives.We will build on successes from Arts for the Blues (AH/W007983/1), a project that received funding from AHRC for phase one of this programme and successfully scaled up the use of an evidence-based creative psychological intervention in the North West. We will also draw on a track-record of 25+ years of engaging CYP in arts activities, and on our extensive co-production experience.Co-creation will therefore become central to this work. We will focus on CYP aged 9-13, a group at significant risk of developing MH problems whilst transitioning from childhood to early adolescence. They will be encouraged to act as co-researchers developing skills they can use after the completion of the project, ensuring direct benefits.We expect that co-creation will lead to meaningful engagement of CYP with this study that aims to generate new, scalable evidence concerning:(A) how to access arts activities that best support the MH of CYP;(B) how to evaluate arts activities that meet the diverse MH needs of CYP;(C) how to maximise the benefit of arts activities for as many CYP as possible.We will create a digital platform where evidence-based local arts activities will become easily accessible for CYP, their families, relevant organisations and services. We will do this by identifying good local arts practice that addresses the diverse MH needs of CYP, especially those who are often under-represented. Six CYP Creative Health Associates will be employed to work in areas with marked health inequalities and establish local collaborations between community partners and existing social prescribing link workers. They will also work with the research team to provide easy and sustainable access to arts activities and thus, bypass local barriers.The active involvement of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) (e.g., Lancashire and South Cumbria and Cheshire and Mersey Care), medical leads and medical directors of CYP's MH, NHS trusts, schools and community organisations will encourage collaboration within and across systems, enabling the development of an agreed evaluation framework of best practice in arts activities. This will support streamlining access to therapeutic uses of the arts as well as scaling up and adopting the outputs from the study in the North West and beyond.Finally, we will develop and share the project outputs with our 46 non-academic national and international collaborators, making an active contribution towards tackling health inequalities that benefits the MH of CYP wherever they live.