The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) is a National Festival that has been running since 2012. The festival was developed to promote positive attitudes towards mental health, mental illness, support and recovery, and to effect significant cultural change through the insights and influences of the creative arts. The festival fundamentally seeks to strengthen the links between arts, community and public organisations.
Festival Aims
The festival is part of a wider programme of mental health improvement, which aims to:
- Promote positive attitudes around mental health problems.
- Increase understanding of mental health and well-being – and how we can promote and support our own and others mental health and well-being.
- Increase awareness of what help and support is available.
As well as the above objectives the festival also wishes to:
- Increase awareness of the important part that the arts can play in supporting and promoting mental health and well-being.
- To engage with the local media to support mental health awareness.
- To increase participation by varying the opportunities to engage by using different mediums, targeting different age spans, spreading across Lanarkshire and creatively promoting the events.
- To link with existing arts and cultural programmes to showcase sustainable projects and build mental health awareness into existing projects and programmes.
- To strengthen the links between arts, community, academic, voluntary and public organisations.
- To challenge and engage on the topics of stigma, recovery and mental health inequalities.
Lanarkshire has actively been involved with the festival since its inception & delivers an extensive programme each year.
After the success of previous festival campaigns, Lanarkshire is delighted to announce their participation in the 19th Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. SMHAF 2025 will take place from Monday 20 October to Sunday 9 November. It will explore the theme Comfort and Disturb.
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.
As always, the theme is full of creative possibilities and we are excited to experience all the diverse, inspiring and illuminating ways that artists and communities interpret it, this October/November.
If you would like to submit a proposal for funding please complete the attached form & return by 2nd June 2025 to susan.mcmorrin@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk
