INTERACT: Imagining the future of mental healthcare in Kent

Researchers from the Centre for Health Services Studies and the Kent and Medway Medical School, working with the Kent mental health NHS Trust (KMPT) worked with several communities to explore the future of mental healthcare in Kent. INTERACT was one of 10 studies supported by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The INTERACT team (including anthropologists, psychiatrists, drama therapists and media scholars) worked with young people, new mothers, older adults, and members of ethnic minority communities to explore how they think about mental health and how they see the future of mental healthcare in Kent. Participants from a range of diverse communities, whose voices are not often heard as part of national debates on health and social care, creatively captured their lived experiences and understandings of mental health and documented their hopes and expectations to improve mental health outcomes for everyone in Kent.

The INTERACT study aims to ensure that a wide range of views are communicated with all stakeholders involved in mental health care: those at the receiving end of such care and those who provide mental health care. The dialogue and insights from the creative workshops are presented in this exhibition.

Front Room, Ground Floor, The Beaney

Saturday 11 January 2024 to Sunday 23 February 2025 (closed Mondays)