Creative Health in Systems

Increasingly, it is recognised that the health and social care systems experienced in childhood and adolescence profoundly influence wellbeing and outcomes across the life course. Building on the World Health Organization’s holistic definition of health, contemporary decision- makers are urged to prioritise prevention, resilience, and inclusion over narrow treatment models (1). Within this reframing, creative health – the integration of arts, culture, and creativity into health and care – has emerged as a persuasive approach to supporting children and young people (CYP) and families. Research links arts engagement to improvements across physical, psychological, social, and cognitive domains (2, 3), although integration into mainstream services remains uneven and patterned by inequality (3). This chapter argues that creative health should be understood as a core strand of CYP workstreams, not a discretionary add- on. It unfolds in three parts: first, defining CYP as a workstream and synthesising evidence for creative health; second, presenting Talent 25 – a 25- year place- based research programme in Leicester – as a case study of sustained creative engagement in early childhood; and finally, exploring how creative health can strengthen CYP work through equity, policy integration, workforce development, and evidence standards. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the shift required to move creative health from the margins of provision to the mainstream of CYP services.