Community arts festivals have a potential role for fostering social capital and population wellbeing. This small, exploratory study collected and analysed qualitative data from eight semi-structured interviews with festival organizers. Thematic analysis was applied to the interview transcripts. The findings suggest that festivals create bridging social capital.Festivals also stimulate self-efficacy, which facilitates participation, an emotional response, and may lead to a sense of personal wellbeing, with a living legacy for the community. The article posits a model to articulate the suggested interrelationship between these concepts.Very little research exists about the contribution of arts festivals for community health and wellbeing. This nascent research therefore adds to the body of knowledge, and suggests the importance of developing participatory activity at local arts and cultural festivals for community health and wellbeing.
The present research posits the significant role that arts and cultural festivals play in contributing to placemaking and generating well-being within communities. Placemaking is recognized to be important when considering how to improve population health and wellbeing, and festivals can be seen to amplify those benefits. Drawing on qualitative data gathered from interviews with festival organizers in SouthEast England and deploying theories of space from Foucault and Massey, the present article argues that community arts and cultural festivals support the positive creation or transformation of pro-social spaces that could support community acceptance and well-being, the ability to live together and cohesively and accepting difference.
Highlights• The study identified four key themes demonstrating that through their use of space, arts and cultural festivals contribute to community sense of well-being and place.• Festivals can imbue connection to and sense of belonging to place for local communities through history, heritage and the traditions presented.• The study suggests access to and participation in the arts is enhanced by using everyday and familiar places.• How festivals reimagine and use space is important to community development and potentially to a placemaking agenda for enhancing public health.• This paper conceptualizes the complex interrelationships of spatial theories specifically applied to arts and culture festivals for placemaking.
Objective: This article describes a university course that aimed to create public health champions and its evaluation. The course attracted 92 participants, over three cohorts. Participants included healthcare professionals, fitness instructors, a belly dancer, housing officers, community workers and those who worked in public health policy. Design: The course evaluation aimed to provide a longitudinal understanding of the participants’ learning and the impact of the course in terms of developing the attributes of public health champions. Setting: A university setting in England. Methods: Evaluation methods included questionnaires, self-assessment against UK Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework statements, ‘check out’ sentences post action learning set meetings, impact statements and unstructured interviews. Results: The evaluation illuminated the participants’ experience of their learning journey, which comprised cognitive, affective and conative learning, the development of public health competences and evidence of putting the learning into public health practice. Conclusion: In total, 76 participants achieved a university award. There was evidence of participants identifying the underlying causes of ill health and using an evidence-based approach to planning, partnership and influencing others. Some participants reported actions that indicated they had become transformative leaders and public health champions. The article discusses limitations to the evaluation and current challenges to public health workforce development in England.
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