BACKGROUND

Funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII), the programme embraced a transdisciplinary approach using design complexity to create new modes of expression to address, communicate, and share the hidden challenges of people experiencing or affected by mental ill-health in remote and rural areas of Scotland, spanning from land-based to maritime communities.
‘Creative Communities’ aimed to understand and explore ways in which the resilience of rural communities and the wellbeing of individuals can be enhanced if mental health issues were expressed, shared and addressed more widely. Lived experience was placed at the core of the programme, enabling ‘voice’ and visibility around the challenges in rural communities.

Using an evolved ‘Flourish’ process (applied in previous SUII funded programmes) that is enhanced through Complexity Design and perspectives from several disciplines, ‘Creative Communities’ resulted in a range of co-created expressive outcomes that begin to make visible the experiences of rural mental health and wellbeing.

PROGRAMME AIMS

Through generating evidence and insight based on transdisciplinary collaboration that is grounded in people’s lived experience, and articulations of that experience, the programme had the following key objectives:

To give voice and visibility to ‘invisible communities’ to ‘reposition’ perceptions, overcome stigma, isolation, and prejudice of rural mental health.

To explore new approaches to supporting and promoting mental wellbeing among rural communities.

To propose new, creative and meaningful communicative pathways in which:

Individuals’ wellbeing can be enhanced if mental health issues were expressed, shared, and addressed more widely;

Rural communities can be made more resilient

To contribute to the national conversation on rural mental health in Scotland and the Mental Health Strategy actions with new insights and questions to drive the rural mental health research agenda (nationally and internationally).