The Abundance Project – Enhancing cultural and green inclusion in social prescribing in Southwest London to address ethnic inequalities in mental health

The Abundance Project is a three-year UKRI-AHRC initiative funded under the Mobilising Community Assets programme addressing mental health inequalities among underserved communities, including ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees. It explores how cultural and green community spaces such as parks, libraries, and museums can better support mental health when they are accessible, inclusive, and embedded within social prescribing.

A commitment to lived experience is at the project’s core. Community voice champions from five Southwest London community hubs – local residents from underserved communities with direct experience of the issues – shaped the work through storytelling and discussion. Their stories highlighted stresses around migration and stigma, mistrust of institutions, and the importance of culturally safe and welcoming spaces. Nature and culture were identified as places of sanctuary. Parks, riversides, libraries, and creative spaces were described as places of calm, connection, and healing. Yet access is unequal. Many spoke about barriers including racism, safety concerns, limited awareness, and certain spaces being “not for people like me.”

Through focus groups and community-led walks, community voice champions mapped their local environments, identifying valued assets and hidden barriers to engagement. The project also identified that social prescriber link workers are key in connecting people to wellbeing support, yet cultural and green activities are often overlooked because immediate needs such as housing and food take priority.
Interviews with national and regional stakeholders from Integrated Care Boards, Primary Care Networks, GP practices, and local authorities indicate a fragmented social prescribing system. A broad spectrum of paid link workers and informal social prescribers in the voluntary and community sector collect and share information on local activities to enable referrals.

Co-design workshops involving community members, health practitioners, local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, academics, creatives, and representatives from cultural and green community assets created space to reflect collectively on challenges and potential solutions.

Six co-designed interventions are now in development:

– Training and upskilling, building the skills and confidence of social prescribers, cultural frontline workers, and youth creative health champions to understand the value of creative health for mental health and facilitate engagement of underserved communities with cultural and green assets.
– Community access schemes, reducing barriers for those least able to access museums, galleries, parks, and green spaces by making them more welcoming and inclusive, and strengthening their reliability as referral options for social prescribers.
– Digital tools, activating culturally relevant, hyper-local assets through strengthening neighbourhood connections and using trusted networks and digital platforms to share information and organise visits.

The co-designed interventions will be piloted and evaluated. Evaluation was built in from the start with a theory of change mapping inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes needed to achieve the project’s goals. This now guides evaluation of the interventions.

Overall, the project centres on amplifying community voices, building connections, and creating community-shaped pathways to mental health and wellbeing. This marks a positive change from emphasising barriers to co-creating solutions, an approach aligned with the theme of #criticalhope.

Read more about the project’s findings in our interim report (https://abundanceproject.myblog.arts.ac.uk/research-outputs) and follow progress on our blog (https://abundanceproject.myblog.arts.ac.uk).

Authors: Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Silke Zschomler, Francesca Taylor, Jonah Rudlin, Tushna Vandrevala and the wider Abundance Project team (https://abundanceproject.myblog.arts.ac.uk/meet-the-team).

Illustration by Palak Garg (www.palak-garg.com).