The Art of Family Life is a project delivered by the Mental Health Foundation.  The project will document the heritage of family practices within refugee communities in Scotland and explore how the connection to that heritage benefits personal and family wellbeing set against a background of migration, trauma and finding new hope.

Working with the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde and the Common Ground project at the Centre for Contemporary Arts this programme of volunteering, oral history collection and arts-based workshop will enable creative representations of aspects refugee family life to be shared and celebrated publicly. 
 
Who We Are

At The Mental Health Foundation, we believe that good mental health shouldn't be out of anyone's reach. We focus on those most at risk to fight mental health inequalities. Our mission is to prevent mental health problems, by helping people to understand, protect and sustain their mental health.  We achieve through our campaigning, test for change programmes, research and policy development.  This includes our role as originator and coordinator of Mental Health Awareness Week held in May each year. 

We know arts and creative activity are beneficial to mental health. As coordinators of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, we are working to create good mental health for all in Scotland through engagement with the arts.  We support audiences, artists and communities in Scotland to live mentally healthier lives and seek to harness the arts and creativity to prevent mental health problems. We do this by combining high artistic quality with strong grassroots support, community engagement and social activism.
 
Our Approach

For over 12 years we have delivered activities aimed at preventing poor mental health among refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where the arts have played a significant role. We are now incorporating creative and heritage learning to explore the ‘Art of Family Life’ a project developed in consultation with refugee communities in Scotland.  There is much time given to teaching and sharing Scottish culture and traditions with “new communities” but very little space for these communities to reflect on their own cultural and faith practices and how this heritage can benefit wellbeing and be shared with wider society to build a representative narrative of the heritage of family life in Scotland. 

Our goal is to develop a heritage wellbeing pathway for people who have arrived in Scotland as refugees so they can preserve their cultural heritage of family traditions and share this with others in their communities and in wider society to educate, encourage and inspire.
 
What We Will Do

The Art of Family Life has been generously supported by a number of funders including the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Westhill Endowment and the Hugh Fraser Foundation.  With our partners the Common Ground Project (a refugee project within the Centre for Contemporary Arts), Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde and Glasgow Life we will work with 15 volunteers and over 40 participants from refugee backgrounds on documenting the heritage of their family practices and exploring how the connection to that heritage benefits their wellbeing. 

This will take place over 24 months with oral history activity taking place mostly in Year 1 and workshops and exhibitions in Year 2. This will include training in oral history collection for 15 volunteers, collection and preservation of at least 35 of these histories, 3 x 8 week blocks of creative workshops for 40 people on aspects of family life including food textiles, music and storytelling and working with participants to create 3 public exhibitions to showcase heritage and engage people in learning about the diversity of family life.  Threaded across this project is importance of the lived experience (of the asylum process and mental health) of project volunteers and participants and we will monitor the impact of skills learnt and the impact on their wellbeing through arts and heritage engagement.

For more information please see: 
How Arts can help Improve your Mental Health
The Mental Health Foundation Website 
The Mental Health Fesitval