Creative Carers

Creative Carers was a training programme, devised by Suffolk Artlink in partnership with lead artists Caroline Wright and Helen Rousseau, which teaches care homes to use creativity everyday to improve the mood, health and wellbeing of residents in care settings. The idea at the heart of Creative Carers is that creativity creates more caring, by getting people involved and interacting with each other.

The programme is delivered by professional artists to the whole home so that all carers are able to deliver creative activities. These can be anything, and have previously included drawing, visual arts, photography, creative writing and crafting. Following 7 years of development, a Social Return on Investment (SROI) Report was produced in 2013, analysing the impact of Creative Carers. It found that Creative Carers had a positive impact on the lives of residents and delivered an overall return of one to three. i.e. for every £1 invested in the programme £3 of impact was generated.