OUR PROJECTS

Chalkhill - The Trusts perspective

Claire Singers – Implementation Manager, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

‘People with mental health problems can be one of the most excluded groups in modern society and often experience poor physical health, a high mortality rate and a reduced quality of life’.

 Sussex Partnership Trust believes that engagement with the arts can play an important role in good mental and physical health. Our hope was that the long term benefits of the arts programme at Chalkhill would engage with a wide breadth of high quality arts practice, engendering ownership, pride, skills and personal development for all those involved.

Right from the inception of the Children, Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Design & Build project our involvement with stakeholders has embraced a desire to ensure that this project would stimulate and deliver a sustainable arts dimension, embodied by increased participation and community ownership.  The Sussex Partnership Trust saw CAMHS as a pivotal health project for all those affected by Mental Health problems and were keen for the Trust, service users and staff to be fully involved with the arts consultancy, Impact Art, the artists and the arts process itself.

To this end, an Arts Steering Group was established at the beginning of the build. The inspirational team led by Impact Art, consisted of the architect-Nightingale Associates, Trust representatives, clinicians, mental health users, staff and administrators; to ensure that the artwork was an integral part of the young people’s centre and the build programme.

The Arts Steering Group met on a monthly basis with the aim of acting as a rudder for the arts scheme. Each representative was closely involved in all aspects of the programme from the interviewing and appointing of artists, to the approval and sign-off of artistic commissions, colour schemes and design specifications.  

In my role as Implementation Manager, it was my responsibility to work closely with the arts steering group and the contractors to ensure that the aims of the group ran parallel with the objectives of the Trust and the build schedule.

The CAMHS Design & Build project has been inspirational and the process gave us a lot of confidence in the artists and Impact Art; as a result we have a beautiful building, tailor-made to suit the young people’s needs, one that challenges the preconceptions of traditional hospital design and will inform the way in which the Sussex Partnership Trust approach further public building works.

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