Creative Recovery

Who we are

For over 12 years Creative Recovery has been bringing people together over shared passions!  This connection and being part of a vibrant, accepting community feels more important than ever right now.  

We are a grassroot charity based in Barnsley that uses creativity to support mental health and recovery, boost well-being, build communities and bring about social change.  We believe that we all hold creative potential and nurturing our creativity can keep us hopeful and well.

The Creative Recovery programme includes 2 pathways, the first route supports mental health and recovery and the second provides access to activities that help boost wellbeing (this ‘preventative work’ is accessible to a broader population). Participants access support via an informal referrals process. We welcome professional referrals from across services, as well as self referrals.

https://creativerecovery.co.uk/

Our culture and values

Being creative helps you feel better. It sparks curiosity, soothes the mind, broadens horizons and reconnects us with the world. From lowering blood pressure to releasing ‘feel good’ chemicals in the brain, there is strong evidence today that being creative is great for your health!

Being creative can also help us to find our voice.  We find new ways to express ourselves and our emotions and beliefs, which can help us to reconnect with others, build better relationships and be part of a collective voice for change; be it advocating for better services, challenging stigma or having difficult conversations. 

We also find we can share our stories and reclaim our narratives, which builds confidence to be ourselves, helping us to relate to others in a positive way and have more autonomy over our own lives, too.

We are collaborators at heart and seek to develop new partnerships, and participate in more ambitious projects, sharing our expertise and resources and of course our creativity for the greater good. Through current partnership we take our work into other settings including NHS, Prisons, hospitals and acute psychiatric areas. We are keen to play a key role in Creative Health locally/nationally, in order to improve access to creative alternatives, grow infrastructure/understanding and develop both our local workforce and evidence base.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Creative Recovery offers a programme of different projects spanning a range of artforms. We develop new work around the needs and interests of our participants. Regular community meetings and project steering groups help us to ensure full involvement and keeps our work relevant and vibrant. We also use our collective voice to raise awareness around some of the issues our community face.

Creative Recovery strives to be an inclusive, diverse and representative organisation and community. We grew out of our lived experiences and a drive to address the inequalities and discrimination faced by people from communities who have been unheard and marginalised. We welcome applications from people identifying with any of the protected characteristics as defined in the in 2010 Equality Act, or from working class backgrounds.

Accessibility is important to us, and we welcome applications and interviews in different formats. Please do get in touch if we can support in anyway at [email protected].