With a background in Psychology, I have always been interested in the role the arts can play in health, wellbeing and exploring the mind-body connection.
After working as an arts and wellbeing facilitator in community and clinical settings since 2012, in 2016 I moved into collaborations with scientists and health academics at institutions such as King’s College London and UCL.
I have a particular interest in how the arts can help people express experiences of chronic ‘invisible’ conditions and how character illustration and storytelling can build resilience in children.
My academic projects include:
My Memory Forest - a children’s book I created alongside psychologists at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at Kings College London to help boost resilient thinking in 6-8 year olds. This was a research trial with a follow-up further funded by the British Council with very positive results around child wellbeing.
Making the Invisible Visible: Fatigue in IBD - with Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College London, working with patients with inflammatory bowel disease to explore the role of the arts in expressing experiences of fatigue through running creative workshops and creating illustrated flashcards for use in clinical practice.
Skyscape - a project with nursing staff at King’s College London, exploring the impact of photographing the sky on staff and student wellbeing where I was involved in running workshops and curating online platforms.
In 2023, I currently act as an Arts and Health specialist and consultant, running workshops, courses and seminars about the arts and health, creative approaches to medicine and public engagement with research for data scientists, researchers, medical students and clinicians at the Wellcome Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS) at UCL, Queen Mary University London and Brighton and Sussex Medical School
In 2023 I have received an Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice grant to develop a children’s mental health resource. My aim is to develop a further illustrated publication to address the current mental health crisis for children and young people,and I am currently in the scopng stage for this with a number of primary schools in East Sussex and East London.
My ten years as an Arts and Health facilitator involved designing and delivering arts and wellbeing projects in clinical settings such as Great Ormond Street Hospital and Homerton Hospital Neurorehabiltation Unit with people with acquired brain injuries, as well with adults, children aand families in a range of educational and social care settings such as learning disability day centres, schools in areas of deprivation, dementia care homes and community centres in the UK and Finland.
During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 I also ran Zoom Arts and Wellbeing sessions for vulnerable adults in Brighton - more here.
I am always excited to hear about new opportunities or collaborations in this area, please contact me: aliwinstanley@gmail.com
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Arts and Health clients and collaborators:
Kings College London, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, Royal Society of Medicine, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Wellcome Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences, Centre for Primary Care and Public Health at Queen Mary University, Youth Resilience Unit at Queen Mary University London, Maudsley Learning, Neurorehabilitation Unit at Homerton Hospital, Westminster Arts, Trust Thamesmead, Kings College Arts in Mind Festival, Grace Eyre, Kids Company, Helsinki Night of the Arts Festival.