Access to training and development opportunities are essential to the effectiveness of a competency framework and the Myriad Spark Training was designed to support practitioners to meet the competencies we have identified as relevant to global majority, creative mental health practitioners.
Delivered by experts in the cultural, voluntary and mental health sectors, the training course was designed to support early-career practitioners, including mental health practitioners wishing to use more of their own creative practice in their work, as well as creative practitioners wishing to move into mental health groupwork.
Whilst the course was designed for global majority practitioners working with global majority communities, most of the resources we developed also have broader relevance.
Following completion of the course, participants were offered paid placements with a health or voluntary sector organisation.
Participants also confirmed our understanding that training and development opportunities for global majority practitioners are hard to access or non-existent, and that there is both appetite and need for more support and development both locally and nationally.
SPARK training participant, Lorraine, explained: “I don’t take continued professional development lightly…as a practising counsellor and creative practitioner, I wanted to marry the two sides of my world, mental health and the arts. The SPARK training programme has given me the tools to do this. The continuity in support for global majority communities begins the process of true meaningful change…it seems so simple; we need more of this.”
SPARK training participant, Milana, said, “SPARK training sits within the wider Myriad project, aiming to improve creative mental health training and opportunities for global majority communities and practitioners. The knowledge we have taken away from this can now be proactively put into practice in communities that need the support.”
The training course covered the following areas and where possible we have provided downloadable resources for your own use:
The relationship between mental health and creativity
Mental health awareness
Planning and delivery of workshops
Aligning your practice with organisational priorities
Working as part of a team
Creating inclusive and safe spaces
Safeguarding and privacy
Global majority communities and mental health inequalities
Anti-racist practice
Monitoring and evaluation
Managing self-employment: the essentials
Professional boundaries
Practitioner wellbeing
Cultural competency
Trauma-informed practice
Thirteen global majority practitioners took part in the course and their feedback evidenced the value they placed on the training and that they felt better equipped to support global majority community mental health through creative practice.
All participants were offered a paid placement with one of five Test and Learn projects within the VCFSE sector. Trainees were matched to organisations based on dialogue about their skills, interests and experience. Careful consideration was given to practitioners’ own lived experience and to whether this would be an asset or a potential barrier to a successful placement.
An action learning set, or ALS, is a collaborative approach to solving real-world problems and challenges, in which participants learn from and support each other, encouraging both individual and organisational development.
Myriad commissioned Result CIC to deliver an action learning set with a small cohort of organisational leaders and established freelancers.
Participants were all committed to building on their existing work supporting global majority community mental health.
The aim of the action learning set was to facilitate a safe space to question, discuss and challenge each other’s practice and to create opportunities for creative and strategic thinking.
“The Result CIC team share their experiences of marginalisation really openly – and what was significant here was that we were open about our experiences from the very beginning.
Participants said this created such a safe, open environment where they felt they could say anything.”
“I believe that representation and having somebody who understands your cultural background can be a fast track to trust and openness and where the real support and collaboration can happen.”
Myriad: Time to Reflect created a facilitated space for global majority creative practitioners to come together and reflect on their practice with the support and guidance of a qualified psychotherapist.
Participants all had a background of working creatively with people in group settings, and an interest in reflective practice.
Two cycles of Time to Reflect ran from March 2024 to May 2025.
Sessions were very much participant-led, and content shifted to support the needs of those involved.
Time to Reflect was neither a therapeutic intervention nor continued professional development, in the traditional sense. This approach sat somewhere in between.
Take a look at our interview with psychotherapist Rafaela Nunes from ThreadUp CIC where she talks about the design and outcomes of the Time to Reflect sessions.
