Collaborating for health improvement: Insights from Scotland’s Museums and Galleries Strategy Symposium
Elena Trimarchi and Ruthanne Baxter reflect on a workshop at Scotland’s Museums and Galleries Strategy Symposium, where museum sector workers explored how the heritage sector can support public health and wellbeing.
Health & Wellbeing is a key strand of Scotland’s Museums and Galleries Strategy with the aim that museums and galleries will improve quality of life through programmes which have a positive impact on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of people in Scotland. As a sector, we are aware of the role museums have in improving the quality of life of communities and visitors, as well as the responsibility they hold in ensuring this is embedded in inclusive and equitable ways of working.
The Health & Wellbeing World Café at the Strategy Symposium in March was a clear indication of the growth of interest in this strand of work across the sector in Scotland. There was a real energy in the room resulting in lots of insightful reflections and practical thinking, much of which you can see summarised in the graphic created by Jenny Capon.
Some of the strong messages coming through included:
- Organisations need to be clear about whether health and wellbeing outcomes can be a priority at this time, particularly considering current staff capacity and resources.
- Senior leadership must recognise that meaningful collaboration with health and social care partners should happen at organisation level, rather than sitting with individuals.
- Staff require dedicated time to support training needs; build and sustain partnerships with local health, social care and wellbeing services; and co-design health and wellbeing specific programmes and resources. This recognises that supporting workforce health and wellbeing is key to enabling organisations to improve the health of their wider communities.
In response to the Health & Wellbeing World Café, our next steps at MGS include delivering two strategic workshops for senior leaders in the sector and producing a curated list of Health & Wellbeing networks and training providers for sector staff and volunteers.
Over the course of the last 18 months, the Health & Wellbeing strand has been informed by the Critical Friends Group.
The Critical Friends Group was set up to support MGS and the museum sector to achieve the Strategy objectives, as well as provide additional insights. It is a transdisciplinary group made up of professionals from the heritage, health, social care, and research sectors. The group has played a key role in developing specific actions for MGS and continues to support their delivery, contributing to the understanding of the challenges and opportunities as the landscape changes.
Over the coming months, the focus will be on reviewing the aims and objectives of the work, which comes at the half-way point in the national strategy’s lifespan. The group will also be providing a presence at several health and social care conferences and events to raise the visibility of the current work and further potential of heritage, museums and galleries in public health.
