Meg Barclay

Learning and Community Development Manager

Meg Barclay has worked in the museums and heritage industry for nearly 10 years following a history degree (MA Cantab) and completing a Norfolk Museum Service Traineeship specialising in learning and engagement. Her experience includes learning and engagement roles across public museums, private heritage organisations, university museums, and York Archaeology, before her current role as Learning and Community Development Manager as part of City of Doncaster Council’s Culture Services.

Thahmina Begum

Artist- Researcher and Art Psychotherapist at Sheffield Hallam University

Hello, my name is Thahmina, I am an Artist-Researcher and qualified Art Psychotherapist. My clinical practice experience is in NHS Psychiatric Wards as well as schools, online, and Community Art therapy groups across Yorkshire. My work as an Artist has been exhibited Internationally, nationally, and hyper-locally. My commissions/exhibitions include the British Library/Yorkshire Sculpture Park/British Council/Yorkshire Sculpture International, and Tetley Gallery. My creative practice explores many social, political, and global issues of our time including racial/intergenerational trauma. 

I have worked for over 20 years in the voluntary sector at the intersection of the Arts, health inequalities, and community development, founding and managing several grassroots community projects. I am passionate about the transformational impact of creativity on our health, particularly the way creative health can address health inequalities in Ethnic minority communities. 

I bring an array of knowledge, skills, and experience including project management, qualitative research with marginalized communities, creative methodologies, funding, leading Co-creation projects, and partnership/collaboration working. 

Ellen Bennet

Lecturer and researcher Sheffield Hallam University

I’m a lecturer and researcher Sheffield Hallam University. I’m based in Sheffield Business School, and spend a lot of my time teaching organisational research, and supporting students who are doing research projects. My background is in the voluntary sector, and I’ve done a number of different roles over the years, all related to supporting small organisations to develop and thrive. I’ve been at Sheffield Hallam in various roles since 2008, and since that time, much of my research has focused on how the voluntary sector and the public sector work can together at a local, regional and national level. I am interested in participatory and creative research methods and involving people in designing and conducting research in their own organisations and contexts.

Rachel Blake

Partnership and Engagement Manager – Heritage Doncaster

I am an experienced regeneration, heritage and arts professional. I have worked across South Yorkshire in various roles and I am currently Partnership & Engagement Manager for Heritage Doncaster. I am passionate about engaging new audiences with heritage and arts and telling stories of place in new and innovative ways.

Jenni Brooks

Associate professor of social policy at Sheffield Hallam University

I’m associate professor of social policy at Sheffield Hallam University. I’ve been a researcher for about 15 years, doing research about social care and people’s experiences of living with a health condition or impairment. A lot of my research has been with people with dementia, most recently with people with dementia who live alone and who don’t have family or friends to support them to contact and navigate services. I like finding creative ways to involve people with dementia in research.

Dave Cartwright

Creative Health Connector at darts

I’m the Creative Health Connector based at darts. Prior to this role I was Co-Creation Producer for LEEDS 2023 (Leeds’ Year of Culture), Creative Producer for Leeds International Piano Competition, In-Schools Co-ordinator for Grimm & Co. In Rotherham and Founding Director of Manic Chord Theatre. Alongside all of this I am a freelance writer, director, producer, poet and workshop facilitator. Through all these roles I have built up a strong, person-centred practice which places value on care, community and resilience.

Sarah Clough

Head of Participation at Cast

I am the Head of Participation at Cast. I’ve been working at Cast since 2016, and before that I was an Artistic Associate here!

Over the past 18 years, working as a senior manager, drama practitioner and in different theatres and arts organisations around South Yorkshire, my work has focussed on arts engagement and outreach. As part of this, I have also been lucky enough to work on national projects and partnerships, for example with the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House to help bring amazing opportunities and experiences to the people of Doncaster.

I am privileged to have seen first-hand the incredible impact that engagement in the arts can have, and incredibly proud of the work delivered by Cast’s Participation department, from our thriving Youth Theatre to our work supporting people, schools and communities with least access to the arts to perform on our stages, to our Dementia Friendly Cinemas and Scriptwriting courses.

I firmly believe engagement and experiencing the arts is an instigator for social change, and theatres play a pivotal role in ensuring a universal access to the arts for local communities – and that this in turn can lead to something amazing!

Chris Dayson

Professor at Sheffield Hallam University

I’m a Professor at Sheffield Hallam University leading the project from an academic perspective. I’ve been doing research around community assets and health for the past 15 years and I’m really passionate about how we can support them to ensure their work is properly valued and understood by people in the health and care system. I hope that this project will help us achieve a step change in how the health system works collaboratively with community assets across South Yorkshire and beyond.

Chloe Froggatt

Embedded Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I’m a researcher and associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. As part of my current research role, I am exploring the prospect that art, creativity and culture can have a positive impact on people’s mental and physical health. My research interests include women’s sexual expression and LGBTQIA+ sexual health and wellbeing. I’ve always loved listening to people’s stories and feel very grateful that this forms a large part of my role as an embedded researcher in creative health within the community. I am passionate about creating safe spaces where people can feel empowered in sharing their thoughts, experiences, fears and hopes for the future. I hope that this project will create a positive change within the health system and community assets, that is informed by people’s lived experiences.

Susan Hampshaw

Practitioner-researcher at City of Doncaster Council

I have worked in Doncaster for over 20 years. I am a practitioner-researcher and lead work at the City of Doncaster council aiming to help us do more research and use findings from research in our decision-making processes.  I have a background in Public Health and believe that the arts have an invaluable role to play in people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. I am really excited about being part of this team.

Annette Haywood

Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield

I am a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, working in the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), Division of Population Health.

I have worked in the Section of Public Health since 2010 where I am the current Head of Section. I also lead the Sheffield Evaluation Hub (https://evaluationhub.sites.sheffield.ac.uk).

I am the Academic Lead for Evaluation within the Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) for the City of Doncaster Council. My role in the Creative Health Boards project is to co-lead the capacity building workstream, which will implement a programme of tailored support to develop research skills, use evidence-informed approaches and support the use of digital technology to promote positive health for people experiencing health inequalities.

Catherine Homer

Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I am a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University. I have a public health background and have previously worked in the NHS, local authority, and voluntary sector around South Yorkshire. I am keen on ensuring the public voice is central to the design and delivery of research and I am looking forward to growing the team of lived experience as part of this project.

Ellie Holding

Researcher at the University of Sheffield

I am a researcher at the University of Sheffield. I have worked at the Uni since 2014, doing all sorts of research trying to understand why people experience health inequalities – or differences in health, which is not through their choice. I am particularly interested in how where we live, and our housing can impact on our health and how this affects different people. I am also interested in how we can work with local authorities and the voluntary sector to reduce health inequalities and have previously worked on research working with them to understand the impact of social prescribing. I am really excited to be working on this project with a fantastic group of voluntary sector organisations and other partners.

Joe Langley

Design Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I am a Design Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University in a research team called Lab4Living. I have worked at Sheffield Hallam University since 2007. I have a background in design engineering and co-design. I apply these skills to problems and challenges related to health and wellbeing. A large part of my role explores the use of creative methods and design practices to get research evidence used in policy and everyday practices or behaviours.

https://linktr.ee/joelangley

Eleanor Lockley

Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I’m a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University. I’m interested in how technology can be used for social inclusion, citizenship, and democracy, and how it can be used for social good and social justice. As a ‘digital sociologist’ often I can be found designing and implementing research studies, including usability studies, co-designed evaluation for impact, and designing ethical frameworks. I prefer using evidence informed approaches, so I design and develop surveys, interviews and workshops that help to gather people’s ideas, opinions, and perspectives.

Clair Maleney

Embedded Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I am a collector and teller of stories. I’m interested in people and the families, cultures, and places they come from and the ways we can work to create more freedom and joy together. My interests are broad in scope but have narrowed, as I have slowly moved from where I started in International Relations, to Cultural Anthropology and Documentary Film, to – most recently – psychotherapy. In each stage of my journey, I have investigated topics around power, justice, and healing.

In my career, I’ve worked schools, charities, universities, and community groups on research and creative projects. Sometimes these resulted in creative outputs like films and exhibitions, sometimes they led to reports and talks. Currently, I am an Embedded Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University as well as an enthusiastic singer, unprofessional fiddler, and questionable sketch artist.

Lucy Robertshaw

Director (Arts & Health) at darts

I’m Director (Arts & Health) at darts.  We’re a participatory arts charity who create art with people in Doncaster to improve life, learning and health I’ve been designing, delivering and evaluating creative programmes in the areas of mental health, dementia and older people for over 20 years.  I lead Doncaster’s Arts & Health Board and collaborate with cultural and health partners to work towards the vision of everyone in Doncaster being able to access participatory creative activities, resulting them in feeling happier, healthier and more resilient. My background is in Applied Theatre and I’m a qualified Makaton Tutor.

Joan Rodriguez-Amat

Researcher at University of Sheffield

I work at the University of Sheffield and research on communicative spaces. This is the overlap between communities, technology, and governance. I have a thing for the colliding and mutually enriching worlds of culture and data science; and have learned to join them together in my research, and my publications. I also bring this into my teaching. I am often seen in classrooms with computers joyfully teaching data skills or internet architecture to students who often never thought they would be able to work with digital data.

Emilie Taylor

Artist and Embedded Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I am an Artist and a Researcher, and I qualified in 2013 as an Art Psychotherapist. I spent 11 years working in Drug and Alcohol services in Sheffield- in street outreach, drop in support and rehab- before combining my interests in designing and delivering projects with heritage crafts at their heart, for people in recovery. I have been delivering and developing this work and accompanying evidence/ research for 10 years. I am used to working in partnership with the voluntary sector, cultural institutions and creatives. I am excited to bring creative methods and a love of research created together, with the people it seeks to represent, to this dynamic project.

Sara Trentham Black

Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University

I’m a researcher, lecturer and PhD student at Sheffield Hallam University; before that I worked in the arts sector with creative organisations, local authorities, and national agencies.  In my research I explore the digitalisation of culture and how data is used to interpret the impact of culture and am interested in how digitalisation and data shape the cultural activities we experience.