Arts and mental health – what about men?

The Baring Foundation have posted a new blog exploring themes of arts, mental health and how much men participate in these kinds of activities.

You can read the full blog here.

The desk research and a large number of conversations I had made me feel that this is a complex area. I previously had in mind the example of our creative ageing programme up to 2019, where it was uncontroversial that men participated less in arts activities and they would benefit from this. 26% of the 31,000 participants in the Celebrating Age programme identified as male. The picture is less clear cut when it comes to arts and mental health.

Barings have identified an action plan including:

• to commission a report modelled on Creatively Minded and Ethnically Diverse;
• to visit as many projects as possible to get under the skin of this work;
• to hold at least one roundtable discussion.

Barings would be grateful for your help. Please contact them on david.cutler@ing.com

• you would like to make a written contribution to the report either as a case study or an opinion piece;
• bring evidence to our attention;
• invite us to visit your work.