Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 programme announced by Réalta, the national resource organisation for Arts + Health in Ireland
Keynote Speaker: Dr Tony Bates
Réalta has published details for Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 and is thrilled to reveal that Dr Tony Bates will be this year’s Keynote Speaker. Dr Bates is a clinical psychologist and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at University College Dublin. He is well known throughout Ireland for his warm and engaging writing and interviews on psychology-related topics. For Check Up Check In, his Keynote title will be ‘The Art of Making our Lives Work’. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In will take place on Wednesday 30 April in Esker Arts, Tullamore. Organised by Réalta, this ‘go to’ event for the arts and health sector features presentations by some of the most exciting and inspiring practitioners working in this field today. The fee for the full day, including lunch, is €30. Click here to book your place or visit www.realta.ie for more details (or read below).
Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is open to arts practitioners, healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in learning more about this exciting area. Check Up Check In provides an opportunity for participants to come together to share their experiences, exchange ideas, and support and inspire each other in their practice through a range of themed presentations and workshops.
Keynote Speaker Dr Tony Bates was Head of the Dept of Psychology for 30 years at St James’ Hospital Dublin. Following psychotherapy training at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford, he established the MSc in Cognitive Psychotherapy at Trinity College Dublin. In 2006, he created Jigsaw, The National Centre for Youth Mental Health. He trained as a mindfulness teacher at the University of Wales, Bangor, in 2001 and is patron of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland. His memoir Breaking the Heart Open: The shaping of a psychologist, was published in 2023. Tony lives on a headland in north Sligo, where he writes, consults and looks after a large garden with hens, giant Flemish rabbits, cats and wild birds. He is married to Ursula, and he is father of three and grandfather of five.
Further highlights of this year’s exciting Arts + Health: Check Up Check In programme include:
– Sticking Points: What to do when you get stuck – Artists and healthcare professionals share challenges they have faced in their work and look for solutions to overcome them.
– Case Study: Mending HeArts – An art project which enhances health and wellbeing for cardiac patients across Galway City and County. This Creative Ireland-funded project is led by Galway City Council in partnership with Galway County Council, Saolta Arts and Croí Heart & Stroke Charity, in collaboration with HSE West North West.
– What’s My Practice? – A series of workshops examining methodologies employed in collaborative/ participatory arts and health practice in Ireland, across a range of artforms and healthcare contexts.
Announcing details of Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025, Claire Meaney, Director of Réalta said “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Dr Tony Bates as our Keynote Speaker for Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025. His life-long commitment to positive mental health for all, his deep empathy for his fellow human beings and his engaging and compassionate approach make him one of Ireland’s most highly regarded and sought after healthcare professionals and communicators. We are thrilled and deeply grateful that Dr Bates is joining us this year. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is a unique opportunity for artists, healthcare professionals, researchers and policy makers to connect, learn, and be inspired. We’re delighted to be presenting this thought-provoking day in Tullamore this year, and we’re most appreciative to Esker Arts and Offaly County Council, in addition to our core funders the Arts Council and the HSE, for all their support.”
Réalta is the national resource organisation dedicated to strengthening and advancing Arts + Health in Ireland. Réalta encompasses artsandhealth.ie, an independent information hub, and the extensive Waterford Healing Arts programme. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is funded by the Arts Council and the HSE and is supported in 2025 by Offaly County Council Arts Office and Esker Arts.
Arts and health programmes comprise a range of arts experiences, presented in healthcare settings, for the benefit of health service users, healthcare staff and artists. This expanding field of work fosters creativity, wellbeing and access to the arts and is based on partnership between the artists, arts organisations and those working in healthcare and/or the wider community. Further information about all aspects of arts and health work is available on www.artsandhealth.ie
Photo of Dr Tony Bates by John Howard
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