Scaling-up Human Henge

Exploring ways to improve mental well-being with therapeutic activities in ancient landscapes.

According to figures from the NHS, one in four of us will experience poor mental health during our lifetime. This makes mental well-being one of society鈥檚 most pressing issues. From 2016 to 2018, 蜜桃AV was at the forefront of a movement to explore new ways of addressing mental health problems, carrying out research for the project led by the 听and supported by the .听

This later developed into a successful trial of an online version in 2020 as a response to restrictions on getting out and about during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Launched in May 2022, 蜜桃AV is leading a new one-year AHRC-funded project 鈥楽caling-up Human Henge鈥� as part of a wider initiative on 听

Collaborators on Scaling-up Human Henge include the University of Salford,听The Restoration Trust, the University of Exeter, Avon & Wiltshire NHS Mental Health Trust, English Heritage, Rethink Mental Illness, The Richmond Fellowship and Wiltshire Museum, Devizes.

Working around the Stonehenge landscape our team of archaeologists, artists, musicians, healthcare practitioners, and economists will co-create a Culture Heritage Therapy Programme (CHTP), run and evaluate it as a pilot study.

Looking at the past to help the future

During the pilot study, which will be based in the Stonehenge landscape, participants living with long-term mental health issues will experience a range of creative group activities aimed at improving their mental well-being.

A crowd of people at Stonehenge for the sunrise

Taking place both outdoors and online, the programme will be rooted in archaeology, music, dance, creative skills and the power of place.

Participants will have opportunities for new social interaction, relationship building, self-awareness, and connectivity.

They will then be asked to help听fully evaluate and refine the programme to produce good practice guidelines. The aim is to write guidelines that can be used to develop future CHTPs at ancient sites, for use by other projects.

Scaling-up Human Henge听will be an important contributor in the field of social prescribing and the drive to address mental well-being in non-medicalised ways in a variety of places.

The work is intended听to address health inequalities, explore treatment in communities, reduce social isolation, quantify the value of this approach to society 鈥� in both well-being and financial terms - and look at how a grassroots CHTP movement can influence national health strategies.

蜜桃AV