"That book changed my life" Reading and Creative Writing for Wellbeing

Venue: Seminar Room, Ground Floor

Presenters: Ms Polly Wright

How many times do you hear people say,‘That book or play changed my life’?

Can reading and creative writing promote wellbeing and develop professional empathy?

This free public lecture will interest anyone who enjoys reading and works with, or alongside, individuals and groups to promote their wellbeing in formal and informal contexts. This includes carers and people who have struggled with mental ill health themselves; health and social care professionals; occupational therapists, social workers and psychologists.

Polly Wright is a theatre director, occasional performer, facilitator, writer, lecturer, and researcher. She is Artistic Director of HEARTH (Change through the Arts). Polly has taught in secondary schools and adult and higher education. She is a part time lecturer in Clinical Communication Studies and Literature and Drama in Medicine at Birmingham University.

The Hearth Centre (thehearthcentre.org.uk/) was set up in 2003 as a centre for Health, Education and the Humanities with Art at the Heart. Hearth uses the arts to animate key issues in mental health, social care and the humanities, and to promote well being. Since 2007, the Hearth Centre has been introducing Reading for Wellbeing, a shared reading approach, into secure and community mental health settings in Birmingham, UK.

In this lecture, you will learn about the work of the Hearth Centre to date and exciting new directions, including how Reading for Wellbeing is being used in a recently funded Melbourne Social Equity Institute interdisciplinary seed funding project.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6323-that-book-changed-my-life-reading-and-creative-writing-for