Bloomsbury Theatre to re-open

The UCL Public Engagement Unit is delighted to announce the awardees in the latest round of Beacon Bursaries.Beacon Bursaries are available to UCL staff and postgraduate research students looking to connect their research or teaching with people outside UCL.In an extremely competitive round the following projects were funded:A learning architecture: An exhibition of Muktangan community practice-led design research interventions from the Mariamma Nagar settlementNicola Antaki, UCL Development Planning Unit/Bartlett School of ArchitectureNicola worked on a participatory design project with children studying at Muktangan School in Mumbai between 2013 and 2016. To bring together all the work they did around developments to their school, an exhibition will be curated and designed through workshops with the children and staff. Along with the exhibition there will be a series of events, and two workshops will be held in the exhibition space with children from other schools, staff, parents and community members to share the approach and inspire future activities.Energy access targets and aspirations: participatory mapping and photography workshop with remote rural communities in Rwanda.Iwona Bisaga, UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic EngineeringThis project will build on Iwona’s PhD research focusing on the users of off-grid home solar power systems in Rwanda. Iwona will run a series of energy mapping and participatory photography workshops with 5-6 of those communities. The photos from the participatory energy mapping and photography workshops will be co-curated by participants and exhibited in Kigali and London. Blog posts and a podcast will accompany the exhibitions, creating impact among stakeholders in Rwanda and the UK.Engaging young people with chronic rheumatic conditions in research development and communicating their ideas through digital mediaAlice Ran Cai, UCL Division of MedicineThrough this project, Alice will create opportunities for young people with chronic rheumatic conditions to share their views on current and future research projects about digital health and self-management of their condition. The team will share research findings with young people, and invite them to test out the smartphone application that they have developed, in order to incorporate their expertise into its design and delivery. Through the project, the participants will be able to access communications and digital training.Engaging with mental health research in very late lifeRachael Frost, UCL Primary Care and Population HealthRachael and her team are planning a series of short workshops to give people in very late life an opportunity to shape future research and benefit from current research findings. Having observed that frail older people are rarely able to participate in engagement activities, this group of mental health researchers are delivering tailored workshops to change that.Storytelling maps and internet clinicAbril Herrera Chavez, UCL Bartlett School of ArchitectureDuring her PhD, Abril carried out research about home technology and internet use in the village of Pendeen in Cornwall. Through this project, Abril will share the results of her research through participatory drop-in events involving storytelling and maps at a community centre in the village. Participants will also get IT support for home gadgets and internet skills training, as her research identified that this support was unavailable in the area.Beat boxing after laryngectomyEvangelos Himonides, Centre for Digital Arts Research Education, UCL Institute of EducationEvangelos will run a series of Beat Box workshops, linking clinicians, patients who have had laryngectomies and young East London audiences. The workshops will explore different techniques for speech rehabilitation, raise awareness of the difficulty facing those without voice boxes and investigate voice production techniques.How can we help homeless people with advanced illness to live well and plan for the future?Briony Hudson, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, UCL Division of PsychiatryConversations about planning for the future between homeless people with advanced illnesses and hostel staff can be extremely difficult but are also very important. Briony and her team will make a short film in conjunction with homeless people and hostel staff, to share their experiences of having those conversations and strategies they have developed to open up conversations. The film will be used as part of a package of training for healthcare professionals about how they might open up conversations about the difficulties of treatment with hostel residents who are very unwell.Empowering migrant parents: A school-family relationship approachSara Joiko Mujica, Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL Institute of EducationThrough this project, Sara plans to provide support to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking migrant families in London, helping them to develop relationships with their children’s schools. She will be working with families to highlight their main concerns on issues such as access, family-school relationships, and parents' rights and responsibilities. The project will conclude with workshops involving different educational and local stakeholders to empower migrant parents in their school-family relationships.The deadline for the next round of Beacon Bursaries is likely to be in summer 2017. Follow @UCLCulture on twitter and subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all of our funding opportunities, projects and events. 

Have you ever heard the expression “Social Prescribing”? It’s the idea that our health and wellbeing can be improved by regular interaction with a community. Perhaps we feel we know this instinctively – who doesn’t feel better after seeing friends? - but when health factors render a patient house-bound, the potential for social isolation can increase, and both physical and mental health can deteriorate.Helen Chatterjee, Professor of Biology at UCL Biosciences and Head of Research and Teaching at UCL Culture, has been working on a project that explores ways to remedy this decline using arts and cultural engagement, and now her work is up for a prestigious Royal Society for Public Health award.Museums on Prescription is the three-year project led by Helen and run with academics from Canterbury Christ Church University. Together they have connected lonely older adults at risk of social isolation to partner museums in Central London and Kent. The project looked at ways in which arts and cultural activities, particularly in museums and galleries, could positively impact the lives of the participants. Referred by health, social care and third sector organisations, these participants took part in 10-week programmes of museum-based sessions consisting of tours, talks and creative activities inspired by the collections.[[{"fid":"4999","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Museums on Prescription","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][format]":"limited_html","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Museums on Prescription","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][format]":"limited_html","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":"338","width":"1001","class":"media-element file-large"}}]]This project is reflective of a wider trend for using arts as therapy. The UK was in fact one of the first countries to support the value of arts in health and wellbeing, alongside Australia and Finland, publishing a major report that highlighted the importance of these schemes in 2014. This research found that creative activity has a positive effect on mental health. It increases self-esteem and improves quality of life. A range of conditions including anxiety, depression, phobia and eating disorders are positively influenced by creative engagement. Furthermore, the NHS and Social Care have been working to reduce the use of antipsychotic drugs for dementia by two-thirds using community-centred approaches, though it admits there is still much to do.We hope that with more creatively engaging projects like Helen’s, that celebrate our wealth of museum treasures and the positive influence they can have, we’ll begin to see a changing landscape in the treatment of mental health and wellbeing.Reference:Chatterjee, H.J. and L. Thomson (2015) Museums and Social Prescribing, in H. L. Robertson (ed.) The Caring Museum: New Models of Engagement with Ageing, pp. 304-341. MuseumsEtc, Edinburgh and Boston.The Museums on Prescription project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.You can download a full press release of the project’s nomination for award here.Read the full Arts & Health Journal post by Helen Chatterjee.Further reading on museums and wellbeing can be found here. [[{"fid":"4995","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Museums on prescription logos","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][format]":"limited_html","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Museums on prescription logos","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][format]":"limited_html","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":"295","width":"1417","class":"media-element file-large"}}]]