Creativity and Wellbeing week was launched in 2012 as a small celebration of arts and health activity in London. Since then we have grown into the biggest (and best!) creative wellbeing festival spanning the UK.

We deliver a yearly Creativity and Wellbeing Festival that went from a small London festival to national in 2019 and saw over 50,000 attendees taking part in around 600 events. The week is held in partnership with the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2021

In 2021 the festival was held entirely online. Our headline event included speakers from organisations such as GOSH, Performing Medicine and CH&WA, and explored the theme of Care, as well as events on social prescribing and the on-going challenges and opportunities of digital/hybrid nature of delivering arts and health based activities in the pandemic.

Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2022

The theme for Creativity and Wellbeing week 2022, was ‘Get Creative, Get Outdoors’. The festival focussed on a mix of events that took place both in-person and online, to ensure that everyone can access a range of creative health workshops, talks, lectures and seminars.

Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2023

The overarching provocation for C&WW ’23 was ‘What is the role of creativity in a health crisis?’, a provocation that was urgent and necessary to consider for all of us who have a stake in supporting people’s health and wellbeing, inside and outside the clinic.

With 13 curated headline events for C&WW ’23, produced in collaboration with partners such as the National Centre for Creative Health, WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health, NHS Greater Manchester, Queer Circle and Arts and Health Hub, events responded to some of the tipping points the sector has been caught up in, such as how to spread creative health city region strategies across the UK and how to translate evidence coming from academia and the VCSE sector surrounding best practice in CH into recommendations for policymakers.

LAH hosted an in-person Sandpit Networking session at City Hall which was attended by 16 freelancers and health professionals, and then an online networking session in collaboration with Seiwa Cunningham and Arts 4 Dementia, to explore the role of creativity in dementia care. Read our evaluation from 2023.

Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2024

Read our full report about Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2024, or listen to our reflective podcast.

Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025

Creativity and Wellbeing Week (C&WW) 2025 focussed on engaging with diverse practitioners, sector leaders, and regional organisations to spotlight the incredible impact of the creative health sector in the country.

Led by the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and London Arts and Health, we wanted to create a truly collaborative festival, encouraging curiosity and listening within the Creative Health sector. We wanted to engage with community organisations, practitioners, and participants across the country to understand their approach to and experience of creative health practices while asking the key question of the challenges of sustaining such work and impact.

The theme of Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2025 was ‘New Horizons,’ and both Drashti (Project and Comms Manager at LAH) and Kheyla (Administration and Social Comms Lead at CHWA) were tasked with encouraging curiosity and listening throughout the Creative Health sector. Highlighting diverse practitioners and orgranisations influencing change, both nationally and within local community circles was key in their approach to curating the National Festival of Creative Health. Through the appointing of Creative Health Ambassadors supporting neurodivergence, youth communities, vulnerable groups and the Global Majority, they used social media to showcase their impact and lean into existing networks to extend the reach of Creativity and Wellbeing Week amongst underrepresented groups.

The festival was hugely successful and truly embodied the spirit of co-ownership as the creative health sector participated with such enthusiasm and celebrated the Creativity and Wellbeing Week.

Across the country, creative health organisations and practitioners hosted and submitted over 350 events for the national festival and over 45 blogs for the website, showcasing their work. Through the build-up and during the festival, we had over 30 collaborative posts from the sector on their participation in the Creativity and Wellbeing Week.

Our events had over 300+ attendees with speakers and special features from the stalwarts of creative health, right from emerging practitioners to the experts representative of the communities we serve.

You can read the whole report here.