21.05.2025

SPOTLIGHT YOUTH SPACE LAUNCHES ‘HEART PROJECT’ TO TRANSFORM CREATIVE HEALTH SERVICES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN TOWER HAMLETS

Spotlight, part of Tower Hamlets–based housing association Poplar HARCA has been awarded a Place Partnership National Lottery Grant from Arts Council England for an ambitious new project tackling health inequalities among young people across the borough.

The HEART Project is a two-year programme that will explore the powerful connection between creative engagement and health and wellbeing. 

Led by Spotlight, Poplar HARCA housing association’s dedicated service for young people, the initiative builds on the sector-leading organisation’s decade of experience in creatively focused youth work to deliver meaningful, borough-wide impact.

Delivered in partnership with Queen Mary University of London and Kazzum Arts, the project will generate vital insights to inform how creative health services are designed and delivered – particularly for young people facing significant socioeconomic challenges.

“At Spotlight, we believe that access to the arts is a social justice issue,” says Poppy Green, HEART Project Lead. “We know that taking part in regular creative activity improves the health, wellbeing and prospects of young people. Our creative programmes support young people to develop the confidence, connection, resilience and self-awareness to become healthy, happy adults. The HEART Project will enable us to explore new approaches and partnerships, hear from young people and platform their perspectives. In order to strengthen creative health services in Tower Hamlets.”

PROJECT DELIVERY

The HEART Project will harness the cultural capacity of Spotlight, a creatively focused youth space with extensive state of the art on-site resources in music, performance, visual art, media and more, to deliver a two-year programme of activity and research across Tower Hamlets.

Using artist-led approaches and youth voice methodologies and underpinned by research and support from Queen Mary University of London, the initiative aims to drive a step change in how inclusive and relevant creative health provision is developed for 11–19 year olds, and up to 25-year-old with SEND, across the borough.

The programme will be delivered across four main workstreams utilising a number of local networks and partners: 

Creative Health Agency (CHA): a training opportunity for young people interested in arts, culture & health & wellbeing to gain leadership, research & campaigning skills by forming a consultative body to embed youth voice in decision-making about creative health services for young people in Tower Hamlets.

Commissioned Creative Consultations: Experienced artists will develop creative consultations across the borough using methods such as podcasting & forum theatre to engage diverse groups of young people with their health and wellbeing.

Participatory Action Research (PAR): Identified groups of Young People who experience health inequities, Health care professionals, artists & researchers will develop creative Participatory Action Research projects that generate new knowledge & increase engagement & understanding between Health care professionals and young people.

Upskilling and Artist Training: Project delivery partners Kazzum Arts, Health Tree and London Arts and Health will develop training that supports local artists to upskill & develop their work in creative health with young people.

WHY CREATIVE YOUTH SERVICES? WHY NOW?

Spotlight is sector-leading in the provision of creative health youth work, and well positioned to lead this vital work with:

Wide reach in London
Connecting with 3,000 young people annually through state-of-the-art youth hubs and engaging 1,800 more through street-based outreach services. 

Integrated approach 

Housing Health Spot, an in-house GP service exclusively for young people, alongside creative youth services.

Proven impact

Demonstrated through their 2023 Creative Youth Work report in collaboration with Queen Mary University.
 
The HEART Project aligns with the NHS’s renewed focus on community-based care and social prescribing, while responding to the Creative Health: The Arts for Health & Wellbeing report – that shares strong evidence that creative activities significantly reduce stress, depression, and anxiety while improving patient outcomes.

Why now? 

Young people have been facing a crisis of mental health for over a decade. Exacerbated by the pandemic. We risk leaving a generation behind if we don’t act now on strengthening young people’s mental health services. Spotlight aims to achieve this much needed step change through an integrated youth service and community-based approaches. In collaboration with the NHS. An approach that HEART project aims to deliver key services and research on. That will shape the picture and delivery of young people’s creative health services nationally.

SECTOR-LEADING COLLABORATION

Dr Heather McMullen, Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University, said: “Our previous and ongoing collaborations with Spotlight Creative Youth Service have shown them to be a dynamic organization committed to bettering the lives of young people using creative and youth-led approaches. We would be delighted to continue our work with them on this exciting project.”

Somen Banerjee, Co-Director of Public Health at Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust, adds: “We support Spotlight’s vision to explore Creative Health and its impact on Young People by embedding youth voice into the Creative Health sector, and are passionate about supporting a vital step change in Tower Hamlets.”

Michelle Walker, London Area Director, Arts Council England, said: “We’re delighted to support the HEART project through Place Partnership National Lottery funding. Place Partnerships are all about trying to make a long-term step-change in local cultural provision, through a range of committed partners working together in their community.

“Poplar HARCA, Spotlight youth space, Queen Mary University and Kazzum Arts each do incredible work supporting creativity and youth engagement in Tower Hamlets, and we’re excited that this project will bring together their wealth of experience to undertake valuable research and deliver artist training to improve the borough’s creative health offer for young people. We hope the project will demonstrate the radical potential of culture and creativity to drive real change, and we can’t wait to see how it evolves.” 

Alex Evans, Artistic Director, Kazzum Arts: “As part of the delivery of the programme, Kazzum Arts will support the creative facilitation of workshops with children and young people, and provide bespoke training in Trauma-informed youth work for the network of professionals delivering on the programme.

‘We are excited to share Spotlight’s vision of trauma-informed creative health activity with young people, and look forward to supporting young people to influence and shape health services through creativity.”

JOIN THE MOVEMENT
 
We invite arts and health professionals, leaders, and young creatives to engage with The HEART Project and be part of this pioneering work at the intersection of creativity and wellbeing.

Join Spotlight’s Creative Health Register to receive updates on research findings, workshop opportunities, and events throughout the two-year HEART project

Click here to Sign up

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact: Poppy Green, Spotlight Creative Programme Lead, HEART Project Lead, Popp@wearespotlight.com