News & Updates

Keep up to date with our latest news and events.

Latest News

  • Final call for June training

    Final call for June training

    We have a few places left for our June training and booking is now open for November: 13 and 14 June 2025IN-PERSON TRAININGEdge Hill University (booked via Edge Hill Uni) 1 November 2025IN-PERSON TASTER DAYUniversity of Salford (booked via Uni of Salford) Edge Hill shop University of Salford shop Please also see here for further…

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  • Arts for the Blues at the House of Lords

    Arts for the Blues at the House of Lords

    Vicky Karkou has appeared at Children and Young People’s Mental Health Roundtable at the House of Lords on 3rd June, hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Creative Health and the National Centre for Creative Health. Vicky spoke to the group about the Arts for the Blues project and the work of the broader follow-up…

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  • Arts for the Blues in Riga

    Arts for the Blues in Riga

    The Arts for the Blues team have presented their work in Riga, Latvia at the 7th European Dramatherapy Conference, also the 2nd International Dramatherapy Conference on the 2 and 3 May. The theme of the conference this year was ‘Human and Nature in Dramatherapy’. This was an incredibly well-attended and diverse conference with around 250…

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  • Next Arts for the Blues therapy group at the University of Salford

    Next Arts for the Blues therapy group at the University of Salford

    We are proud to announce the next Arts for the Blues therapy group will be delivered at the University of Salford starting on Feb 11th 2025. The group will run every Tuesday morning 10-11:30am for 12 weeks, concluding on 29 April 2025. The group, which has limited places, will take place face to face on…

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  • Arts for the Blues training in Kathmandu

    Arts for the Blues training in Kathmandu

    In collaboration with researchers at Queen Mary University, London, we delivered Arts for the Blues training to therapists based in Kathmandu, Nepal on 9 December. Some lovely photos of the event in the gallery below!

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  • Arts for the Blues nominated for a Knowledge Exchange Award!

    Arts for the Blues nominated for a Knowledge Exchange Award!

    We are delighted to announce that Arts for the Blues has been nominated for a Knowledge Exchange award. This relates to how our training programme is helping to spread creative practice in therapy in the NHS, and in a plethora of charities, schools, health and cultural organisations in the UK and overseas. We couldn’t do…

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Events

  • Arts for the Blues adapted for postnatal depression

    Arts for the Blues adapted for postnatal depression

    Tuesday 3rd November 19:00-21:00 UK time We invite you to join ENGAGE….conversations conceived across performance studies and the maternal. A series of online forums which consider, through different artistic and academic perspectives, how maternal performance helps us to understand the lived condition of motherhood. Each forum responds to a themed-provocation (question) and features a panel of guest…

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  • Arts for the Blues in Greece

    Arts for the Blues in Greece

    4th January 2020, Thessaloniki This January, Vicky led an experimental workshop and seminar based on the Arts for the Blues approach. Participants included arts psychotherapists (dance, drama, arts and music) as well as primarily verbal psychotherapists and psychologists. The day focused on the contribution of the arts to the treatment of depression and experiential work…

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  • BADth annual conference 2019

    BADth annual conference 2019

    British Association of Dramatherapists 6-8th September 2019, Chester The Arts for the Blues team presented this autumn at the annual BADth conference. The British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) is the professional body for Dramatherapists in the United Kingdom. Dramatherapy has as its main focus the intentional use of healing aspects of drama and theatre as the therapeutic…

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Research Announcements

  • Arts for the Blues film

    A film about the Arts for the Blues project was included as part of the Healing Arts Symposium hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York. It was the only example from the UK and it was screened on 14th November 2021. The event was in partnership…

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  • Release of new publication!

    The Arts for the Blues team are delighted to announce their third publication which presents the twelve session creative psychotherapy model for depression. This article details the approach taken by the team to inform the model and presents the eight key ingredients that underpin the therapy.  Omylinska-Thurston, J., Karkou, V., Parsons, A.S., Nair, K., Haslam,…

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