Teresa is a Consultant in Public Health who specialises in Arts in Public Health, Qualitative Research and Community Recovery. She holds a master’s in public health & health promotion from London Southbank University and undergraduate degrees in Health Studies, and Nursing. She is also a coach and mentor and a recent recipient of the prestigious NIHR Short Placement Award for Research Collaboration (2022).
Teresa is particularly interested in storytelling as a research methodological approach and is a champion of Most Significant Change storytelling methodology. Teresa leads the Creative Health agenda in East Sussex and champions the benefits of Creative Health as a public health resource. Building upon the ESCC Everyday Creativity Pilot of 2021 that was developed as a community response to the Covid 19 Pandemic, Teresa has led the development of a Creative Health – Arts in Public Health Strategic Plan to outline how East Sussex can use the arts and creativity to improve the health and wellbeing of the population. This will represent England’s first ever county-wide creative health offer (as of June 2023).
As programme lead, she has led on the journey towards embedding Public Health and Creative health insights principles and techniques including a diverse range of projects and research and evaluation initiatives. Key to this is the Eastbourne Alive Programme collaboration led by the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne as part of the Turner Prize coming to Eastbourne in 2023 and delivered in partnership with a wide range of cultural, heritage, arts and health and care sector partners. In this context, Teresa is working with partners to use Eastbourne Alive as a unique research opportunity to test the impact of an ‘arts dose’ of place-based arts engagement on the health and well-being of residents, with a particular focus on young people.
Teresa is a member of a number of boards including the Culture East Sussex (CES) Board which works to deliver the vision and mission of CES and ensure that the cultural sector creates opportunities and possibilities for everyone. She is a member of the National Centre for Creative Health’s Creative Health Champion Network, the Solutions for Health Digital Health and Social Care Board and has led innovative artificial intelligence solutions to support health & well-being. Teresa is a keen poet, weightlifter, and inspirational speaker.
Talk: Towards a Creatively Healthy County
Insights from the East Sussex County Council Public Health Team’s journey towards building a county-wide Creative Health offering. The session will cover their journey to date, research and evaluation approach, next steps and sustainability, and outcomes. impact and lessons learned with practical suggestions as they continue to deliver on the strategic vision and opportunities at the heart of the Creative Health agenda.
Other speaker: Daniel Devitt