Our Creative Minds programme is all about sparking your imagination, exploring creativity, and giving your wellbeing a gentle boost along the way. We team up with brilliant professional artists and arts organisations across West Kent to bring you a colourful mix of activities designed to inspire, uplift, and help you feel good.

And the best part? Each programme runs for six months, plenty of time to discover new skills, meet great people, and grow your confidence at your own pace.

Scroll down to explore some of the wonderful programmes we’ve created so far… and stay tuned, because there’s lots more to come!

Creative Minds is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund

Printmaking is the process of printing motifs or patterns onto a surface, with the help of ink and pressure. The possibilities are exciting and endless! Using a variety of techniques, you will learn printmaking skills and gain the confidence to express yourself and create your own, original art.

Exploring Printmaking is led by professional artist Nell Price, Creative Director and Founder of Arty Farty Retreat in Southborough. Nell has worked in the arts in health and social care for ten years.

Nell will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will develop your printmaking skills and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Are you ready to try something new, learn a creative skill and make some time for your wellbeing?

Beginners to Knitters is a 6 month programme, led by local knitter Laura Olley. Well known locally as the founder of Yarns of Anarchy and a trained counsellor, Laura will gently guide you on your knitting journey and inspire you to explore your yarn creativity!

Engaging in creative activities can help to reduce stress and anxiety. Laura will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will develop your knitting skills and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Whether you are a complete beginner, or looking to develop your basic knitting skills, you are welcome to join the programme.

Everyone has a voice, so let’s sing! In partnership with the wonderful D’Vine Singers, a community wellbeing choir based in Sevenoaks, we invite you to join our new singing programme. Spend time with us each week singing fun, uplifting and soulful songs. It’s a brilliant way of just giving yourself time and being in the moment.

Singing has been shown to increase a sense of happiness and is a fantastic communal activity. It can help to reduce stress, improve memory and boost your confidence and your mood.

You don’t have to be a singing superstar to join. Everyone is welcome, you don’t need any musical ability or experience of singing in a choir. You’ll find a warm welcome, encouragement and plenty of enthusiasm from the very first session.

Singing for Wellbeing is led by D’Vine Singers Choir Leaders Jacky Hintze and Nicola Wydenbach, and they will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker. Over the course of the 6 month programme, you will sing a wide variety of popular songs and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions about supporting your wellbeing.

Why are we so drawn to trees? They intrigue us, call to us, shelter and protect us.

The Forest Project will use fairytales linked by forests, including Hansel and Gretel and The Soldier and Death to explore the magical characters and creatures of the forest and the enduring power of trees.

In this new programme, led by Russell Dean, artistic director of award winning local puppetry company Strangeface Theatre Company, and in partnership with the Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival, let your imagination run free and enjoy the creative process of making your own masks and puppets. You will learn from one of the country’s leading mask makers how to make masks using a table top vacuum former which create a durable lightweight mask with smooth finish.

Russell will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will develop your making skills and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Creating History is an arts and crafts group with a difference!

Using objects from The Amelia collection, we will bring history to life and use what we learn as a starting point to create art in a fun, relaxed and supportive environment.

From Dinosaur bones to contemporary objects, history will be where we start, but where we go will be up to your imagination!

Creating History will be led by Daniel Huckfield, Wellbeing Projects Officer at The Amelia and local abstract artist. He will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will develop your creative skills and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Are you ready to tackle something new? To have fun and experiment? To take a step into the visual world of creativity?

Led by local artist Clare Summons, Art for All will focus on different artistic styles and techniques, giving you the opportunity to learn new skills and explore your own creativity. Transform the ordinary into something extraordinary!

Clare will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will learn new artistic skills and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Develop your creativity, explore your imagination and discover new possibilities!

Programme leaders Jon Oram, Artistic Director of Claque Theatre, and Maryjane Stevens, director, actor and drama facilitator, have extensive experience of community and participatory arts. They will gently guide you through exercises to develop skills in unlocking, developing and trusting your unique imagination.

Using techniques of mindfulness and improvisation, and activities including creative writing, painting mask making and performance, the programme will support you to unlock your creative potential, work supportively with others and build your confidence.

Jon and MJ will be joined by a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker, and over the course of the 6 month programme, you will develop your creativity and have the opportunity to join relaxed discussions around how to support and improve your wellbeing.

Interested in learning and developing cooking skills in a creative and supportive environment?

Then join us in April for our 6 month Creative Cooking programme covering all aspects of home cooking. We’ll begin with basic kitchen skills before moving into more challenging recipes as your cooking confidence grows. We will focus on the best ways to cook healthy food on a budget, each week creating dishes together which can then be taken away to share. We’ll cover recipes for soups, stews, salads and desserts as we aim to build your culinary knowledge to enable you to recreate easy and good value menus at home. We will also explore recipes that serve as “fakeaways” – healthier and cheaper versions of your favourite treats covering the themes of Indian, Italian, Chinese, Thai and Mexican.

At the end of the course we will bring our knowledge together to offer a banquet for invited guests to share the favourite recipes we have created during the programme!

Mags of Cook for Life will be leading this group, and a West Kent Mind wellbeing worker will also attend.

Start your mindful journey with watercolour through some simple exercises to get familiar with the medium. Then we’ll work through colour mixing, creating your own colour chart, and experimenting with some different brushes and painting materials.

Imogen Partridge will share the way she works with watercolour and guide you through building a painting together, working through week by week. You will then have a voice on what projects you would like to work on. By the end of our six months together you will have created at least two finished pieces and maybe many more (depending how quickly you like work).

While we will work towards ‘finished’ pieces, this is very much about the journey not the outcome and Imogen will encourage you to experiment and express yourself in your own way throughout.

Imogen says “Watercolour has brought me a great deal of peace, calm and joy and I’m delighted to be able to share this with you too.”

A West Kent Mind wellbeing worker will also attend the group.

Photo credits: Mollie Manning Creative, Charlotte Knee Photography.

Jane, an incredibly talented local photographer, has kindly offered to lead this photography Creative Minds group. A West Kent Mind wellbeing worker will also attend the group.

This is a beginners photography course, for anyone interested in learning to improve their picture taking skills – whether with a mobile phone, tablet, or any kind of camera.  The group will be based in Otford and venture outside using the Otford Palace and the local area to explore and photograph.

Each week the group will start inside with some mindfulness and a short introduction to a new topic on various aspects of composition or type of photography. The group will then go out for a walk around the village and nearby countryside to try it out. The session will finish by with the group sharing any favourite images (those who wish to.)

The group will cover a wide range of subjects from using the ‘Rule of Thirds’ or leading lines or colour in our photos, to photographing views, buildings, flowers, people, patterns, movement, macro images etc. The group will aim to be photographing outside each week, but for those occasions the weather is too wet, then it will run inside and consist of indoor photography instead such as still lives, portraits, using flash, flatlays etc, and look at how to improve photos with editing too.

The aim is to enjoy taking some photos together, learn and practice, and hopefully improve what you’re creating, whatever camera you are using.

Special thanks goes to Nick and the Archbishops palace conservation trust in Otford who are kindly working in partnership with us to support this group.

Are you wanting to explore the art of writing? If you are completely new to writing or are looking for a supportive group environment to further develop your work, this course can help. Over 6 months on a weekly basis, Word Weavers will explore fiction, non-fiction and faction using different techniques and tips. Author Jennifer Godfrey will lead this online course providing informative, fully interactive, energetic and fun-filled sessions. You will work in a safe, friendly environment where the words you weave can be shared with each other.

All participants will receive a pack of resources prior to the start of the course. These will be used to support your learning and stimulate ideas. Towards the end of the 6 months you will be invited to finalise a piece of your writing for inclusion in a published West Kent Mind Word Weavers book.

To celebrate this and your achievements from the course, the last session will be dedicated as a Reading Evening. Your friends and family can join this final online session to hear those that wish to read an extract from your published piece.

A West Kent Mind wellbeing worker will attend every group.