Meet José Sunshine-Okoro, Walsall’s Creative Health System Lead, who is bringing together more than 20 years’ experience in the cultural sector with her background in community engagement and health to explore how creativity can support the health and wellbeing of people across Walsall.
José has worked across museums and galleries in the Midlands, developing projects and approaches that connect culture with communities and wellbeing. She has also worked with communities experiencing inequalities, including people experiencing mental illness, social isolation, homelessness and domestic abuse. More recently, she retrained as a psychotherapist, bringing together her experience of the arts, community engagement and health.
Her new role is part of the national Creative Health Leads Programme, led by the National Centre for Creative Health, in partnership with Walsall Together. Based within the Public Health team for an initial two years, her role is to look at how creativity can play a bigger part in supporting people's health and wellbeing across Walsall.
There is already lots of creative activity happening across the borough, but it can sometimes happen in isolation, without clear connections between organisations or pathways into health, public health and community support. Rather than starting from scratch or delivering creative activities herself, José will work with partners to understand what is already happening, bring people and organisations together and look at how this work can be better connected.
She is particularly interested in how creative health can reach people who may not traditionally engage with cultural spaces or services, and how opportunities can be brought closer to where people live, including through neighbourhoods, community organisations and social prescribing.
“I’ve seen first-hand how creativity can help people feel connected, empowered and supported. I’m really interested in how we can bring that together with health and wellbeing, particularly for people who might not always feel that traditional cultural spaces or services are for them.”
The first step will be to map the creative health activity already happening across Walsall, working with Public Health and partners to understand what is already in place, what we can learn from previous work and where there are opportunities to work differently.
Over time, the ambition is to make it easier for people to access creative health opportunities and to build stronger connections across Walsall, so that creativity and its potential benefits for health and wellbeing feel accessible to everyone.
