Project title
Description of initiative
The Pendle Leisure Trust (PLT) was set up in 2000 when the local authority handed over all responsibility for managing leisure services. The council provides an annual subsidy which has been subject to cut backs. The Pendle Arts on Prescription programme was established in 2007. This programme is funded through a number of funding streams but their core budget still comes from the local authority through an adult learning budget and Target Wellbeing resource
(via Big Lottery). The programme provides twelve week arts and crafts courses, three times a year, in a number of community locations across Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley.
This arts on prescription programme provides art courses free of charge to adults suffering from depression, anxiety, isolation and low self-esteem. Courses include: mixed media and crafts, drawing, painting, glass, creative writing, journaling, cookery, cake baking and textiles. All of the courses are run by professional artists, who are experts in their own field but who also have a passion for helping others and understand how people who are feeling a bit fragile need to work at their own pace in a friendly and relaxed environment.
Further information on the initiative
Themes: Culture and...
Keywords
Target group
Cultural field
Timeframe
Results, benefits, impact and lessons learnt
Running across Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley the project has worked with over twelve hundred people since 2007 and has developed effective course names, descriptions, referral partners and ways of marketing the courses that work. There is a steady stream of interest – a mix of individuals calling for themselves and health agencies wanting to refer people – from a referral database of over two-hundred and fifty health and support workers.
The programme monitors participants’ mental health using the Warwick-Edinburgh scale of wellbeing. This is a series of questions people answer as they start the course and then again as they finish. Across Lancashire the average score amongst general residents is fifty-five, across East Lancashire it is fifty-four. The average score for participant starting the course is forty-three, which is significantly below average and when people finish the programme this averages at fifty-one. The programme is extensively evaluated and they have recently carried out a full social return on investment analysis which indicates a value to society of £17.02 for every £1 invested in the Pendle Arts on Prescription programme