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Regional Arts Development Central West NSW
ARTS & HEALTH
Award winning programs integrating arts into health outcomes

Arts and health has been a key priority area of Arts OutWest over the last two decades.

In our strategic plan we aim to:

  1. Extend the work in hospitals (includes MPS and MPU facilities) through a range of artforms and across many aspects of health (including dementia and disability)
  2. Advise and support health sector workers to develop their programs and support strategic development
  3. Build links with other service providers in the health sector
  4. Support arts practitioners to be trained and aware of best practice approaches to working in health settings
  5. Continue to take a leadership role in the sector (Eg. participation in the NSW/ACT Leadership Group).
Partners

Arts OutWest has a memorandum of understanding and a long term partnership with Western NSW Local Health District (WNSWLDH).

Individual project partners are listed with each project overview and case study (below).

AWARD WINNING PROJECTS

In both 2011 and 2012 Arts OutWest won the Arts and Health Australia International Award for ‘Arts and Health in Regional and Rural Australia’. Christine McMillan accepted the 2012 award at the Arts and Health Conference in Freemantle, WA, where she had also been invited to present on the Look Art Talk project. In 2013 Bathurst Regional Art Gallery won a Museums & Galleries NSW IMAGiNE Award for the partnership project with Arts OutWest, Look Art Talk.  In 2016 Arts OutWest and Lachlan Health Service’s Mali Marambir Ngurang: to make better place Lachlan  Aboriginal language signage project won the Chief Executive’s Award at the Western NSW Local Health District’s annual Living Well Together Health and Innovation Awards.

Current Activities
Rolling
Rolling

Researching arts in aged care

Hospital work
Hospital work

Ongoing: arts programming in hospitals

Virtual Art Snacks
Virtual Art Snacks

arts experiences in aged care

Yaganda Bulabul Art Project
Yaganda Bulabul Art Project

arts project to create healing environments

Latest news

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Yaganda Bulabul Art Project

A collaborative arts project to create healing environments working with the Infant Child Youth Family Mental Health Unit (ICYFMHU) is underway at Bloomfield campus (Orange) in the redeveloped Yaganda Bulabul Building.

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Three Rivers project begins

Christine and Steven have begun work on the THREE RIVERS mural project we have been commissioned to undertake throughout the child and adolescent mental health unit at Bloomfield Hospital Orange.

past project case studies

A selection of arts and health projects and activities from recent years. Many of these projects have ongoing threads that connect to our current work.

Men’s songwriting in Grenfell
Men’s songwriting in Grenfell

Songwriting for good mental health

Hospital signage
Hospital signage

Hospitals adopt Aboriginal language signage

The Artists and the Farmer
The Artists and the Farmer

Creating the ‘Siloscopes’ outdoor sculpture for Forbes Hospital

Garden of the Mind
Garden of the Mind

Supported 2019: Multi-arts mental health stories

Colouring Books for Hospitals
Colouring Books for Hospitals

2017: colouring in book for patients, visitors and staff

Dementia Art Group
Dementia Art Group

2018: For People Living with Dementia and their Carers

Musicians in Hospitals Training
Musicians in Hospitals Training

2016: Pilot program training musicians to work in hospitals

Look Art Talk
Look Art Talk

2012: Pilot Art and Alzheimer’s program

Jemalong Art Programs
Jemalong Art Programs

Aged care art and dementia program

Spread the Word
Spread the Word

2012-14: Aboriginal health

Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams

2013: multi-arts program of music, dance, visual arts, storytelling.

Wellbeing Projects
Wellbeing Projects

2017: Multi-arts approach to good mental health

Hospital work
Hospital work

Ongoing: arts programming in hospitals

Lachlan Health Service
Lachlan Health Service

2015-2017: embedding arts into new hospitals

JOY: Kids art for Trundle MPS
JOY: Kids art for Trundle MPS

2021: workshops, hospital exhibition

Wattlegrove workshops
Wattlegrove workshops

2021: Art making for health space

Salvage
Salvage

Supported 21-22: multi-arts response to bushfire recovery

Not Another Brick
Not Another Brick

2022: Lake Cargelligo MPS mural

Contact our team members

Steven-AOW-3-72-dpi
Steven Cavanagh
Communications + Arts & Health Projects
Christine McMillan
Christine McMillan
Arts and Health Coordinator