About Start in salford: arts and wellbeing

Start in Salford's mission is to promote emotional wellbeing and recovery by providing creative arts-based activities and training opportunities for people who are, or maybe at risk of experiencing mental health difficulties or social exclusion.

Start in Salford is a community arts and wellbeing charity, based in our fully equipped arts studio and workshop complex at the heart of Salford. Our vision is to create a centre of excellence that enables individuals to develop their aspirations, confidence, self esteem and skills, using the arts and other creative mediums renowned for their therapeutic benefits.

Creative activities and mental health

There are many reasons why creative activities are such important tools for working to improve mental health and wellbeing, but the point is they bring amazing results. For more than 17 years, Start in Salford has been helping people to be creative, talk about their lives and share their experiences.

We have seen hundreds of people grow in confidence and self esteem. Our members take pride in what they achieve and most importantly, they learn to balance their responsibilities and worries so they can cope today and plan for tomorrow.

Five simple steps to improve wellbeing

Here are five simple steps we can all take to improve our wellbeing and at Start in Salford we try to give people a start in all five. They are:

Connect... Talk and listen to the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours.

Be active... Indoors or outdoors. Alone or with others. Go for a walk. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good.

Take notice... Be curious. Notice the unusual or beautiful things in every day. Take time to think about what really matters to you.

Keep learning... Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Join a group or take a course. Learning new things will help make you more confident as well as being fun.

Give... Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Something as small as a smile can be a huge gift. Offer your help as a volunteer or friend, and feel part of the community.