Wakefield Recovery College brings creativity to the city at Creative Health Symposium
On Thursday 4 June, colleagues from Wakefield Recovery and Wellbeing College were special guests at a district-wide event celebrating the power of creativity in health.
Artists, creatives, health practitioners, community workers, local government officers, researchers and people working or aspiring to work in creative health came together at Wakefield Exchange (WX) to share learning and explore opportunities to collaborate.
Wakefield Recovery and Wellbeing College shared with attendees how they use free creative courses and workshops to transform lives, their involvement in the Hope Collective poetry anthology, and their plans for the future.
The Hope Collective was launched in November 2024 by the research and development team at the Trust in collaboration with the National Poetry Centre. In 2025, people were invited to submit poems focused on one of the four themes of unspoken, loss, begin and moment.
A panel of NHS staff, patients, and representatives from the National Poetry Centre and Creative Minds then selected 60 poems based on their emotional impact to be published in an anthology, with proceeds supporting EyUp!, the Trust’s charity for mental health and community services.
Published in the anthology is volunteer Kev, who was encouraged to submit a poem after reading one of his works to the Trust’s volunteer services. Hear Kev reading his poem, “Why me?”, in this short video:
Wakefield Recovery and Wellbeing College offers a range of courses and one-off workshops (both face to face and online) which all aim to improve wellbeing through learning. To find out more, visit their website.
