On Thursday 3rd October I attended a symposium in response to Francesca’s facebook suggestion. As I live in Birmingham, I jumped at booking a ticket, without any expectations other than to enjoy a few hours on reflecting on wellbeing.
Nicola Naismith, author of ‘Artists Practicing Well’ opened the event introducing her research on how practitioners have a responsibility to practice self-care. Even though, there are good practice guidelines helping organisations and freelancers to deliver activities for wellbeing, Nicola has found through her research that there is limited support for practitioner wellbeing.
Nicolas’s report recognizes that the self-care of the practitioner should be a team effort, involving the commissioner, organizational leader, funder, policy maker. This is necessary for practitioners not to feel isolated. See synopsis of report.