Starting from Scratch: Piloting wellbeing activities Rosie Barker, Community Engagement Officer Birmingham Museums Trust

What does wellbeing mean to you? Health, happiness, access, empathy, physical, social, individual, connectedness... Think about what you do that improves your own wellbeing?

How do you decide what to do? Two pronged approach. 1 - what are your local needs? Joint Strategic Needs Assessments Health and Wellbeing Boards National health trends and profiles Local authority demographics Dementia Strategies Google is your friend!

How do you decide what to do? Two pronged approach. 2 – what have you got? Map your assets: Resources Programming Indoor and outdoor spaces Collections Equipment Staff skills

Get the right partners on board Partners will help provide participants Partner organisations offer health/wellbeing support Use the available evidence Speak their language…

Five Ways to Wellbeing Developed from evidence-based research and used nationally Helps us talk the same language as health providers, charities etc.

Map your own wellbeing activities and your current provision onto the Five Ways to Wellbeing What you already do can be repackaged and targeted at different audiences to support their wellbeing

Do it, and learn from it What do you want people to get out of the activity? What do participants (carers, key workers…) want to get out of the activity? Did they get what they want/need – and why? What can you change to make it work better?

Creative Carers Carers Mental health Anxiety / depression 87% negative 91% affected Carers

Gaffer’s Garden

Year 2 and beyond Building on what’s worked – and what hasn’t Zen Garden Young Carers Refugee wellbeing Care Home livestreams

You are based in a Victorian museum with an accessible classroom and a small outdoor space. Based on the existing provision we’ve mapped, develop a pilot that will impact on one of Public Health England’s ‘Ten facts that sum up our nation’s health 2017’. Think about: Who you’ll partner with What you’ll do Will there be tea and cake (trick question!)

I am less anxious and talk more now here and at home. Final words… This was fantastic as there aren’t many places we can go as a family where we don’t get stressed. It is somewhere special where I feel like I’m being cared for. The cake was lovely! To acknowledge that unpaid carers are doing work that is valued and to organise a time for our recreation is a wonderful statement of recognition. I am less anxious and talk more now here and at home. When you get a dementia diagnosis, the health service would do well to direct families to the Dementia Café experience. It’s like pebbles in a pool - ripples benefit me and then benefit others I care for

Rosie Barker, Community Engagement Officer Birmingham Museums Trust Rosie.Barker@BirminghamMuseums.org.uk