The Power of Imaginative Play by our Creative In Place Beth Sheldon

Bethany Sheldon – Arts Derbyshire, Creative In Place (Erewash)

Hi there, I’m Beth, and I’m a new member of the Arts Derbyshire team.

My official job title is ‘Creative In Place’ (CiP), what is one of those I hear you cry?! Well this is something I have been trying to work out for myself over the past few weeks, as I begin to settle in. It’s very exciting and simultaneously daunting, as this is a new role and a new way of working, thinking and approaching Creative Health that Arts Derbyshire in partnership with medical partners are piloting in two locations within Derbyshire (Wirksworth and Erewash). I am working in Erewash, most closely with Littlewick Medical Practice, a big busy practice in Ilkeston and Erewash Primary Care Network (known as the PCN).

We are on a new journey, nobody has done this here before.  There is no official manual, no ‘how to’ books, just the gentle guidance from Arts Derbyshire’s brilliant Creative Health Producer Nicola Middler, shared learnings and reflections from my wonderful CiP partner Nick Davis (who is on a parallel creative health journey in Wirksworth) and some incredible and passionate general practice and primary care staff, who are open to trying new ways of working together.

This role is refreshing.  It’s an invitation to be curious, to be creative and to connect and listen – things that often fall off the priority list in our busy lives. I’m currently meeting lots of amazing community groups and community connected people as well as general practice and healthcare staff in Erewash. From these meetings and chats we are then mapping out a sense of where Creative Health currently sits, or could sit, side by side with everything that is going on already.

This pilot also looks to capture what happens when a creative thinker is placed into an area and takes the time to connect with both local community and general practices. What creative ideas and solutions arise in response to challenges or gaps in provision. Can anything often unseen, be seen by fresh, creative eyes?

As part of this early consultation – the ‘curious chats’ – period, I’ve also started testing creative ways of holding public conversations around Creative Health and wellbeing. I’ve been drawing on my skills as a theatre maker and story gatherer and inviting people to join me in some gentle imaginative play (and yes I am talking grown-ups, not just children!). We all benefit greatly from time spent connecting with play and imagination!

My background as a theatre maker is in clowning, comedy, storytelling & imaginative play. I devise (create from scratch) theatre and write on my feet, through play and improvisation, collaborating with others to spark ideas and bring what we collectively imagine to life. Imaginative play is a key component in this process, using it to draw out the story, character, new worlds and environments that eventually become a creative thing…a theatre show, an art installation, a film, a radio sitcom.

During my time working in Creative Health over the years with partners like AirArts (Derby/shire and Burton Hospital’s Arts and Health program), I have worked with patients, staff and visitors to draw out stories and memories through imaginative play too, creating mini pockets of escape, wellbeing and human connection.

So back in CiP land, when I began thinking about ways to hold public conversations about Creative Health and wellbeing with people in Erewash, my first thought was ‘How can this be playful?’. I know first-hand how effective creative and playful environments can be in opening up conversations and connections with people, so it felt like the best place for me to begin.

This time my imaginative play comes in the form of a pop-up ‘Prescriptions for happiness’ booth:

• My costume; a wellbeing jacket – a reinvented Doctor’s coat, now wearable art (thanks to my super sewer textile artist mum, Jan Bradshaw) celebrating and representing visually the many creative things we can do to support our wellbeing.
• My set/prop; a prescription for happiness toolkit – an old revamped doctor’s case – the type with drawers and slide out boxes, a cabinet of curiosities ready to be explored!

Earlier this year, I got the opportunity to put my imaginative play theory to the test, as the ‘Prescriptions for Happiness’ pop up had its first outing, at the WE:Flourish (Wellbeing Erewash) health roadshow with Erewash Primary Care Network.

So there I was, on a gloomy, drizzly Thursday morning in January, in the ginormous, echoey foyer of Long Eaton Tesco, amongst other healthcare stalls, ready to play. My wellbeing jacket on and doctor’s case open for appointments, full of colour, hope and anticipation. Not a place you’d usually expect to connect and reflect on your own wellbeing, or engage in creative activity. In fact, for a moment, I wobbled. I wondered if this was just one step too far in my public play experiments. Would people actually stop and chat to the eccentric lady in the coat of many colours?

But I needn’t have wobbled because people did stop and so, with a friendly invite to pause with me for a few minutes, thus began some gentle imaginative play.

Out of my doctor’s case I picked up a small glass bottle. I took the cork out of the top and handed it over. As we stared into the empty vessel, I began with my invitation to play…

‘This bottle is yours, we can fill it with what you need to feel happy and healthy today’ And just like that, our creative journey began, and together, just like when I make theatre with others, we creatively collaborated. We opened drawers full of wool and wonder and rummaged through jars of ‘happy and healthy’ buttons to find just the perfect one.

In those few minutes, creative magic happened. The rhythm of daily life and to-do lists were suspended. We landed in a new reality.  We slowed down together to enjoy a creative conversation about wellbeing, about ‘how are you feeling?’ and to reflect on ‘what do you need more of in life to stay happy and healthy?’.

And yes, I could have just asked these questions to people without my pop-up prescriptions booth and without my revamped doctor’s jacket. But without the magic, without the moment where creative play suspends our reality, I just don’t think people would have slowed down and reflected as deeply, or as profoundly, as they did through play. You see, part of ourselves in that moment was no longer in Tesco’s foyer, part of us had landed in a newly invented creative reality – a reality of brightly coloured wool, buttons and bottles. A reality where we slow down and take the time to think about our own wellbeing.

In that reality, so many rich and wonderful conversations and reflections happened, as together we chose the perfect bright button to symbolise ‘needing to ring my friend more’ or the perfect blue one for ‘looking forward to seeing the sea again’.

A totally abstract concept and a concept that, do you know, not a single person questioned in the foyer of Long Eaton Tesco’s, on a gloomy Thursday January morning, because everyone accepted the invite and journeyed into imaginative play. Even I was surprised, as well as the people I met, by how deep those conversations went, whilst being safely held in a little bottle world, filled with their thoughts and reflections. Conversations of isolation and loneliness of grief and exhaustion were shared.

But all who stopped to make their ‘Prescription for Happiness’, it seemed, left a little bit lighter. They left feeling seen, heard and holding onto their small, self-prescribed, reminder of how to nurture their own wellbeing, to carry with them into the January gloom and beyond.

So my friend, before you go, I invite you to take a moment and tell me,

What would your prescription for happiness be?…