Freelance participatory artists and creative practitioners

Submitted by angela conlan on April 1, 2021 - 07:50
Salary / Fee: 
£4600
Closing Date: 
Monday, 19 April, 2021

Creating with Care (CWC) is an award-winning project which delivers a programme of arts and wellbeing interventions for staff, patients and relatives at Community Hospitals across Oxfordshire for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

CWC aims to:- · Enhance the wellbeing of patients, relatives and staff in the hospital through participatory arts interventions · Enhance the hospital environment through these arts interventions. · Raise awareness of the benefits of arts interventions in healthcare settings.
Creating with Care works closely with Oxford Health Charity and together with Artscape makes up the Oxford Health Arts Partnership.

Our groundbreaking arts partnership demonstrates just how much cultural activities like art, dance, and music can enhance patient and staff wellbeing. More than eight out of 10 people say it has helped them. Activities help relieve anxiety, depression and stress. In fact, music is known to reduce agitation and the needs for medication in 67% of patients.

Oxford Health Arts Partnership works across Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust on Community and Mental Health wards, as well as with community teams.

The Opportunity

CWC is looking for freelance participatory artists and creative practitioners for its programme across 6 Community Hospitals in Abingdon, Bicester, Didcot, Oxford City, Wallingford and Witney.

We are interested to hear from practitioners who specialise in:

· Storytelling, poetry, rap, beat-box, spoken word

· Comedy

· Dance & Movement

· Theatre

· Mindfulness

· Visual Art & craft

· Music (folk, traditional and native instruments encouraged)

· OR a combination of any of the above

We are keen to support local artists and would be interested to hear from artists practicing in Oxfordshire.

We are looking for 6 practitioners to work on our wards for 2 x half day sessions a week over a period of 6 months. We are expecting to rotate artists so each artist will spend time at each community hospital listed above.

Experience working with a healthcare environment and/or with older people is essential to the role. Flexibility and confidence with improvisation is also highly desirable. All artists will need to go through our honorary contracts process.

Throughout this project will be evaluating the impact of the arts within the hospital setting working closely with the research and patient participation departments at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The fee for each artist is £4600 (inclusive of planning and travel) there is an additional budget for materials.

To apply, send a CV and a short covering letter detailing your interest to angela.conlan@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk by 19th April 2021 (interviews will take place on April 28th 2021)

Multi Artform
Health and wellbeing
Adults