Arts, Health and Policy: Key takeaways from our Weave workshop
22/09/2025 | Author: Rosie Dow
from Rosie Dow, Arts and Health Consultant leading policy focused breakout session at Weave | Gwehyddu conference 9th September 2025
Arts, Health and Policy: Key takeaways from our ‘Weave’ workshop
Picture the scene: it’s day 2 of a conference filled with warmth, creativity and stellar examples of great arts and health projects. You’re hosting a breakout session, in the post-lunch slot, on the often-dry and always-complex topic of policy. Honestly, it was a little daunting trying to work out how best to support the attendees to get their heads around this knotty topic in one hour, at such a sensitive time politically, and keep the energy in the room up when everyone was full of delicious soup.
But I needn’t have worried: over 40 people rocked up to our room with all the energy, enthusiasm and go-for-it vibes that I’ve come to expect from people in our sector. I was delighted, and we had a great conversation about how best to influence policy around arts, health and wellbeing in Wales, which I’ll attempt to summarise here.
So, what did we learn about policy at Weave?
A key message from Heledd Fychan MS, Chair of the Arts and Health Senedd Cross-Party Group, was that we are in a key moment in the political cycle right between now and Dec 2025, because hundreds of candidates are gearing up to launch their campaigns for the 2026 Senedd election. This makes now a rare moment where we have a big opportunity to put issues in front of them that they can campaign on.
To this end, WAHWN recently released a manifesto with 5 recommendations for prospective Senedd members to help progress arts, health and wellbeing in Wales. Jenny McConnel from The Office of the Future Generations Commissioner also presented a brilliant summary of their 2025 Future Generations Report at our workshop session, calling for more investment and support in culture to support our wellbeing.
What can we do to influence policy?
Heledd’s main piece of advice to us was to contact all our local candidates, from all parties, in the next 2-3 months and invite them to come and see our work and our projects in person. But this left me thinking: what do we say to the candidates in those approaches and how do we get our message across to them in person if they do come along?
So, in our workshop we reflected on this, by considering three BIG questions: What do we want politicians to know? What do we want them to do? And why should they care about arts, health and wellbeing work?
What do we want politicians to know?
The strong links between arts engagement and better health are now irrefutable: the evidence base is significant, robust and growing all the time. Not only does our work improve people’s lives it also helps us meet some of our biggest challenges as a nation around poor mental and physical health and health inequalities. It makes a major contribution to any government’s top priorities around health, wellbeing and economy. The question now is not whether to invest in this work, but how.
What do we want them to do?
This work must move away from being a series of short term, ad-hoc projects on the periphery of our health and arts sectors: we need mainstream arts for health and wellbeing services so that people in our communities know we’ll be there for them as long as they need us.
To make this happen we need proper investment, not just through Arts Council of Wales but also through local authority, health and education budgets. We also want arts and culture to have a proper seat at the table in forums where health is being discussed and strategies developed. All public bodies should be mandated to support creativity and cultural engagement in our population.
Day-to-day, we want MSs to join the Arts and Health Cross Party Group and advocate for this work within their own parties, manifestos and in the Senedd.
Why should politicians care?
Because our politicians should want a happy and healthy population, and that is the overriding mission of this work. People need joy in their lives, and happy, healthy people will re-elect governments instead of continually seeking alternatives.
Beyond this, arts and culture are a key tool to helping ensure Wales’s economic, ecologic and sustainable future. Supporting the wellbeing of the people of Wales has numerous proven benefits and will save money elsewhere (namely on health): prevention of poor health is better than a cure. This could also be a thriving sub-economy within the cultural and health sectors, with lots of potential jobs and businesses created.
Top tips for engaging policy makers
Heledd, Jenny and others also shared a few useful top tips for engaging policy makers:
→ Make any written communications / invitations to MSs or MS candidates short and sweet; otherwise, they won’t read them. Save the detail of your projects for in-person conversations.
→ If your MS, MP or candidates don’t reply to emails feel free to tag them on social media.
→ Just like long emails, mass emails (i.e. the same email sent by lots of people) will be deleted so always tailor your approach.
→ When you meet policy makers you may have just a few minutes to get your message across. So speak succinctly and send them away with a clear call to action.
→ Research the interests and priorities of the politicians you meet (Google and Wikipedia are great!) so you know how to tailor what you tell them according to their key priorities.
→ Shout about this work from the rooftops! Make sure you’re communicating the impact of your work to the wider public and your community so that they can advocate for you, too.
Four of my reflections from our session
- We can’t underestimate how impenetrable the topic of policy still feels to many; one workshop attendee told us they didn’t know what the Senedd was before this workshop. So, we should never assume knowledge.
- Building on this, there is a clear and vital role for networks like WAHWN, academics, cultural institutions, health leaders and funders to advocate on behalf of the sector and to understand how our political system works
- That said, there are still simple, effective things everyone working in any part of arts, health and wellbeing can do to influence policymakers, if they can feel empowered to do. This empowerment is something the same networks can - and should - support practitioners with.
- Telling a story to policymakers about this work in a way that will land is so, so important - and we could still be better at it. Making time to learn about, articulate and communicate a concise and compelling story about our work is hard to do but it is time well spent if it helps to bring big decision makers into our world.
A note of hope
At these trying, and often devastating, times of global political turmoil, it can feel like we don’t have any control over what politicians do. I’m pleased to say that this workshop, and indeed the whole Weave conference, really proved to me that we can engage politicians and we have a message and a story that will land with them if we tell it in the right way. And whilst there’s clearly much to do in this space, I think we took a big step forward over the past few days and I for one go away hopeful and empowered. A rare feeling when it comes to politics, and one to be treasured along with the many beautiful memories from my two days in Wrexham.
A huge thanks to WAHWN, its team, partners, funders and sponsors for bringing us all together and asking me to convene this session.
Rosie Dow, Freelance Arts and Health Consultant
