Prosper North: Whippet Up CIC

Whippet Up links health, wellbeing and culture, using underused community spaces to help people improve their wellbeing through regular weekly wellbeing and creativity sessions.

A wide health and social care referral network finds socially isolated people who we support in open groups that develop creative skills and then plan and deliver cultural events. This sees people coming in from the margins to perform at festivals, organise arts events and take on new creative roles.

Whippet Up has developed a way of working that utilises underused community spaces to help people improve their wellbeing through regular weekly wellbeing and creativity sessions. Each of the day-long sessions we run then lead to other cultural events that are co-produced by our wellbeing groups (we run 3 weekly adult wellbeing/creativity sessions and one for preschool children and their parents/carers).

This progression from wellbeing groups to helping run community events helps tackle social isolation. We work with a wide referral network built across mental health support, dementia support, social care, Occupational Therapy and carers support. This network helps identify the people we work with. All our sessions are also open to people who can self refer if they want a ‘wellbeing boost’

Every wellbeing and creativity session Whippet Up runs links into a wider art, science and heritage programme that is designed and planned with our group members. Every session we run builds props, writes scripts or creates artwork that is used at these community/cultural events.

Our wellbeing and creativity sessions include a communal meal. This brings the whole group together around one large table (we often have different sub groups building different things at sessions). The time after the meal becomes the planning meeting where we roll out the paper and plan the activities with the group.

Whippet Up joins the Prosper North community as part of Edition 2.