ClowNexus - Creative Encounters for Mental Health

forthcoming

ClowNexus – Creative Encounters for Mental Health is a cross-sectoral European cooperation project that brings together healthcare clowning organisations to support youth mental health and strengthen the arts-for-health field. Growing evidence shows the benefits of healthcare clowning – an applied performing arts discipline – for hospitalised children and adolescents. The project addresses the youth mental health crisis, marked by a significant rise in hospitalised children treated for psychological conditions. There is a clear need for specialised artistic methods and humour-based care approaches with measurable impact. ClowNexus will contribute to the improvement of youth mental health through new healthcare clowning methods and by supporting healthcare professionals in applying humour and creativity in patient care. A secondary objective is to strengthen healthcare clowning organisations which often face limited access to training, exchange, and recognition through providing diverse capacity-building opportunities. The project will deliver cross-border Artistic Labs, artist mobility and training, a peer-to-peer dissemination model, advocacy, communication, and impact evaluation. By engaging ten partners across Europe, ClowNexus supports key priorities of the Creative Europe programme: cross-border collaboration, capacity-building in the cultural sector, and the strategic use of arts to address societal challenges.