Creative arts: a wellness tool in mental health

Since 2015, the OAG has partnered with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre on Creative Space, a program that encourages mental health and social inclusion through weekly drop-in art-making workshops. When we had to close the building in March this year because of the pandemic, we took the Creative Space sessions online.

Thanks to support from the Ottawa Community Foundation via the Emergency Community Support Fund, this summer we were able to begin offering two online sessions per week (on Wednesday afternoons and Monday evenings) in order to engage with more members of the Creative Space community.

To ensure the best off-site experience of this program, we have been distributing take-away packages to participants in the program that provides them with all the arts materials they need for two months of planned activities. Recent funding has allowed us to produce a custom tote bag to neatly bundle the supplies. In August and September, we focused on painting. For the next few months, we will focus on drawing.

For more information on this and other programs, email community@oaggao.ca

OAG would like to thank the Ottawa Community Foundation for funding support of this program.