Dust 2016: Children, arts and mental health

The Dust of Everyday Life is an annual conference exploring the arts, mental health and social justice, programmed by the Mental Health Foundation and See Me, Scotland's campaign to end mental health discrimination. This session from Dust 2016, at the CCA in Glasgow on Wednesday 20 April, was a discussion around the question: ‘how do we talk to children about mental health, and what can artists do to help?’ It was chaired by Fiona Ferguson, creative development director for Imaginate, with Deborah Malcolm (author of Meh, a children’s book about depression), Rob Gallagher of Impact Arts (which runs art therapy courses for children), art therapist Alison Peebles, Red Bridge Arts creative director Alice McGrath (currently producing Titus, an acclaimed children’s show that addresses mental health) and child psychotherapist Andrew Dawson. (NB: In the interests of clarity, the Andrew referred to by Fiona Ferguson at the beginning of the session is not panellist Andrew Dawson but Andrew Eaton-Lewis, arts lead for the Mental Health Foundation.)