Sasha Handley has recently been awarded an AHRC Impact Accelerator Award worth c. £60,000 for the project ‘Sleeping Well in Salford’. The funds will support a one-year placement for Dr Anna Fielding with Ordsall Hall in Salford (part of Salford Council Leisure) to tackle health inequalities in the region using historic sleep research generated by Sasha and her Wellcome Trust-funded research team.

Dr Fielding will work with local health sector partners (Living Well Salford, Wellbeing Matters Social Prescribing, Salford Health Improvement, and Mind in Salford) to design, implement, and evaluate a range of creative health workshops, programmes, self-led resources, drop-in sessions, staff and volunteer training, and staff tool-kits for use across SCL and the health sector partners. The creative health workshops aim to provide mental health and wellbeing support to Salford residents.  The project will also create a model of best practice for embedding creative health approaches in heritage and health sector organisations. The model will be relevant for work in the wider region together with national and international heritage and health networks.

Participants in this IAA-funded project will explore early modern and contemporary approaches to physical and emotional health including using historic sources such as recipe books, medical texts, diaries, and botanical herbals to explore holistic healthcare models and the benefits of good sleep for physical and emotional wellbeing. In addition, the IAA funding will enable SCL and the health sector partners to continue to provide free creative health drop-in workshops on a regular basis at Ordsall Hall as part of the project legacy, aided by the tools, resources, and training coming from this project.

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