Helium Arts goes top of class in providing value for money

When it comes to value for money, the Mullingar based children’s charity Helium Arts is top of the class, as it gives double the return on investment.

According to a recent Social Return on Investment Study, the children’s arts and health charity generates a social value of €1.98 for every €1 invested, while a separate study released recently shows that the arts increases the wellbeing of a child by 90 per cent.

The chief executive officer of Helium Arts is Helene Hugel, who lives in Mullingar. Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner this week, she welcomed the findings of the study as they “bolster the rationale for what we do, while revealing the lasting positive impact our services have on children and their families”.

It demonstrates that “our service is needed”, and she calls on the government to provide the funding to enable Helium to continue.

Lockdown had been difficult for those living with long-term health conditions as they coped with extra isolation and cocooning but Helium Arts has been there to help them cope, she said.

She added that nurturing creativity through the arts is shown to improve coping skills, wellbeing, stress and anxiety management, as well as building confidence, self-worth and a sense of hope. “At Helium Arts, we are driven by the idea that healthcare will always be about more than treating an illness – it is about supporting people,” Helene said.

Helium Arts was set up in 2010 and since then it has worked with more than 5,000 children and young people, bringing the creative arts to those living with chronic illnesses, disabilities and mental health difficulties through painting, theatre, drawing, crafting, animation, sound design and film-making.

Helene explained how the Distance Creates programme, which involved participants from Westmeath, helped teenagers with long-term health conditions to cope during the lockdown.

While many were able to go about their schooling and day-to-day life the same as their peers, there were others for whom cocooning and the isolation of social distancing was a difficult reality that they had to find a way of managing.

The Distance Creates programme used remote working and innovative tools to allow participants to find expression and have some form of connection despite the restrictions. In fact, 25 per cent more people could take part in the programme during lockdown because it was done remotely.

Helium’s Youth Advisory Group was created to help young people influence decision making about their own creative wellbeing, within and beyond participation in Helium’s programmes, so their voices are heard within the organisation, the healthcare system and in government policy making.

“At Helium Arts, we believe that in order to work with young people, it is vital that you listen to them first,” said Helene. The group provides a fun creative platform by which young people can creatively present their individual and combined experiences and ideas and contribute to decision making on behalf of all young people living with long-term health conditions.

In the past, film making camps have been held in Mullingar, when, as Helene put it, “the world was as we knew it and we could work in person” and one of their films was screened in Mullingar cinema.