CHWA Awards

After running the Awards every year for 3 years, we have decided to move to a biennial cycle and hold Awards every two years. The next Awards will be run in 2024. On alternate years we will be holding a national or international conference.

Read on for more information on previous winners and shortlists!

Thank you to everyone who has been involved in the awards so far. Many people have shared how they have acted as an anchor and beacon for CHWA and the sector during a challenging time. Please do keep an eye out on this page, our socials and join the alliance to receive our monthly bulletins where we will share updates on the awards and all other ways to get involved. Congratulations to the winners, highly commended projects and to all the projects and organisations shortlisted for the CHWA Awards 2022.

The CHWA Awards 2022 Gathering was held on Friday 25 November to celebrate all involved. Watch a recording below!

Read more about the shortlist and awards here

Collective Power in partnership with Ideas Alliance and The Lived Experience Network ( The LENs)

WINNER: Gloucestershire Creative Health Consortium

"GCHC is developing a placed-based system that brings together partners from across culture and health to meet the needs of their community in a responsive, co-productive and imaginative way – we felt this work had real potential to influence the sector, especially with the increasing move towards the development of more local ecologies and strategies to support more joined up and sustainable working."

 

Read more

WINNER: ACAVA: Grenfell Memorial Community Mosaic

"This work wholeheartedly reminded us of the collective power of a community (close to a 1000 people) - returning to creativity in the face of adversity and personal/collective trauma to connect, memorialise and heal – and how the role of the artists/creative practitioners can create space for people to tell stories and create meaningful, shared experiences."

Read more

HIGHLY COMMENDED: A Manifesto for 2.8 Million Minds

"We were captured by the radical nature of this work and its conviction in positioning lived experience at the heart of decision making about creativity and mental health in response to a crisis in a place. The panel were also excited by the potential, “the snowball effect” of this work enabling others to embrace and action a manifesto for change."

Read more

Practising Well in collaboration with Nicola Naismith

WINNER: Performing Medicine

"This organisation leads with care at the heart of their practice. We believe that this work has great influence on both the cultural and health sectors and will nurture conditions that can enable, as they describe, a multi-directional flow of care - leading to better understanding between practices and a more sustainable approach to supporting everyone involved in this work."

Read more

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Soundcastle- Sparking Change Programme

"Soundcastle examples both commitments to offering a menu of support for practitioners and building an inclusive, flexible and caring culture by centring mental health in their work. The Sparking Change programme embedded practices of self-care and reflection alongside practical knowledge to support their pathway - growing a confidence for the next generation of practitioners to make their own case for better support."   

Read more

Climate in partnership with The Happy Museums Project and Culture Declares Emergency

WINNER: Our Earth Your Choice

"The panel were particularly excited about how this work, alongside being a great creative opportunity, was also developmental in its approach for the young people taking part. Space was created to nurture agency and thinking about climate change – forging new voices and activists for the future."

Read more

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Eco-capabilities: Supporting children's wellbeing through art in nature

"This is a valuable research - based investigation, bringing together thinking around wellbeing, engagement with nature, arts and education. With its’ specific focus on communities that experience deprivation and low socio-economic status, we believe this work has the potential to be part of the important work of shifting perceptions and beliefs around access to nature and who can claim it."

Read more

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Yarmouth Springs Eternal

"We felt this work was strongly rooted in community, yet with space to allow for constant evolution, responding in a meaningful and timely way to need. It was underpinned by a very strong sense of the links between climate, culture, nature, wellbeing and inequalities, and embraced a broad understanding of lived experience that shaped the growth of the work."

Read more

The Full Shortlist

Collective Power

A Manifesto for 2.8 Million Minds | Connecting with Yemeni Elders’ Heritage project, National Museums Liverpool & partners | Gloucestershire Creative Health Consortium - Coproduction, Covid and Beyond | ACAVA: Grenfell Memorial Community Mosaic | North West London Suicide Prevention Programme | Union Chapel - Creative Community Leaders Programme | Understanding what mental health means to men from ethnic minority backgrounds. Black men and digital mental health in dialogue - understanding identities, building relationships, and delivering change – Kooth, BLCKOUT UK & Cultures CIC

Practising Well

Freelancer Manifesto, Turtle Key Arts | Headway Arts Culture of Kindness & Creative Café  | Live Music Now | Performing Medicine | Soundcastle – Sparking Change Programme

Climate

Courtyard Centre for the Arts: climate change action | Eco-Capabilities: Supporting children’s wellbeing through art in nature | LOOK Climate Labs - LOOK Photo Biennal | Mum, Will The Planet Die Before I Do? | Our Earth Your Choice |   Yarmouth Springs Eternal

Read more about the full shortlist here