Strategic Plan 2024-2028

Executive Summary

Art in Healthcare’s mission is to provide engaging and impactful creative opportunities to support and improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of individuals in Scotland. Many of these activities take place in community, health and social care settings.

We know that art can help people to feel better and believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience art. As inequalities in society and within access to healthcare grow, Art in Healthcare is providing services that are needed more than ever, and demand for our services is high.

“Creativity is not just nice to have, but central to supporting people to live well, and in the creation of healthier, happier and economically flourishing communities.”[1]

We share our art collection and art workshops with individuals and communities that are under-served by mainstream arts provision. We work across Scotland, identifying and mitigating barriers to participation. We place our large art collection in non-gallery spaces like hospitals and GP surgeries and take art workshops to people in their communities, both in person and online. This approach allows us to work with individuals and communities who would otherwise not be engaging with art, artists or creative activities. All workshops are free at the point of delivery.

We strive for excellence in all aspects of our operations and programmes. We support creative journeys, rooted in art and expression. Whilst what brings people together might be a shared experience of caring, feelings of loneliness or a health condition, our workshops provide space for participants to explore techniques, experiment with materials, develop friendships, build confidence and express hope.

As we look to the future, we will continue to develop, responding to the changing context in which we operate. Our focus will be upon maintaining and growing our current programme, enabling us to maximise our impact. We will further develop our role as a sector leader and influencer, by sharing our learning and expertise and advocating for policy change for the benefit of individuals living across Scotland.

Photography: Alan Dimmick

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[1] The National Centre for Creative Health and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing’s Creative Health Review: How Policy Can Embrace Creative Health, 2023.

Vision, Mission & Values

Our Vision

Art and creativity will improve health and wellbeing for everyone in Scotland.

Our Mission

Is to provide engaging and impactful creative opportunities to support and improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of individuals in Scotland. Many of these activities take place in community, health and social care settings.

Our Values

We have three organisational values which guide our decision making and inform our behaviour as an organisation. These are:

• Care: We care for people, our art collection and our environment.
• Communities: We work collaboratively to make connections between people and art and to encourage health and social equality.
• Creativity: We believe the arts have a positive effect on health and wellbeing and should be available to everyone.

Our Six Strategic Aims

Aim One: Use Art and Creativity to Help People Feel Better	Use the success of our current programmes as a springboard for consolidation and growth in provision, scaling up to cover more of Scotland.  Expand our work with people living with long term health conditions. Find targeted opportunities for growth in our engagement programmes, informed by the voices of our partners and participants.  Maximise the potential of our collection to improve health and social care settings.
Aim Two: Increase Access to Art and to our Services	Place engagement, inclusion and accessibility at the core of all our activities.  Unlock the potential of the art collection to reflect the communities it serves.  Develop new partnerships, across Scotland, to diversify the range of community, health and social care settings we engage with.  Focus resources upon under-served audiences and communities.
Aim Three: Widen our Partnerships to Unlock Potential	Use our unique position to advocate for the health benefits of art, and to increase our profile as the ‘go to’ partner for art in healthcare.  Empower communities and partners to help shape our services.  Develop more opportunities and support for artists and curators. Use evaluation and data to inform our activities and share our learning to advocate and influence wider debates. Meaningfully and regularly engage with local, regional and national networks, contributing to debate, policy, conferences and publications.
Aim Four: Be the Best, Most Inclusive Employer we Can	Be guided by the Framework for Fair Work in Scotland, meet sector employment and remuneration standards and provide flexibility.  Make positive steps towards our trustees and staff team being fully inclusive and representative of the communities we serve.  Provide structured and meaningful routes into the arts sector, with an emphasis upon broadening diversity. Further invest in training, mentoring, networking and volunteering opportunities to unlock the potential of both our staff and our partners.
Aim Five: Challenge Ourselves on our Environmental Responsibilities	Develop skills and empower our staff and trustees to meaningfully engage with the climate emergency to bring measurable innovation to our related activities. Interrogate our functions and risk awareness to ensure climate action, adaptation and mitigation have been considered. Ensure there are opportunities for engagement with the natural environment and climate change as part of our programmes. Use our position to influence those that we work with to challenge themselves on climate.
Aim Six: Be Financially Secure and Fully Resourced	Further diversify our funding model to reduce reliance on limited short-term funding sources.  Further develop sources of unrestricted income.  Grow the team in line with our ambitions, to ensure we have the capacity, skills and experience to deliver excellence.