Creative Therapies Role Models © British Association of Art Therapists, 2025

Delegates of my presentation at the 2025 European Federation of Art Therapy conference in London weave their thoughts on a wooden loom, considering ‘the tension between Art Psychotherapy and the Arts in Health’.  Photograph © Diana Zuican.

Cultivating Creativity Calendar © Jess Baum and British Association of Art Therapists (2025)

Research, Public Speaking & Publications

I have an interest in the interplay between art-making, social justice, and public health.  As an Art Psychotherapist and artist-researcher, I enjoy supporting projects that focus on improving people’s lives and empowering communities through creativity and access to the arts.

Recent Arts & Research Projects

I am currently working with Local Learning on a four-part community arts project funded by Historic England, researching the ways in which minority groups and refugee communities have historically experienced urban spaces and how they can influence better city planning for the future.

In Spring 2025, I visited the Leach Pottery in St. Ives to share learning and practice around using clay in Social Prescribing ‘Arts-on-Referral’ initiatives.  I was fortunate to be awarded a grant by the West of England Combined Authority to fund this trip, which has since enriched my work in Bristol and North Somerset.  In anticipation of this exchange, I read Bernard Leach’s autobiography, ‘Beyond East & West’ to discover more about his social and spiritual motivations, which drew him to clay and to Cornwall and Japan.

Recent Publications

In 2025, the British Association for Art Therapists published my ‘Cultivating Creativity Calendar’ , a Creative Health resource for young people that it had commissioned me to design, write and produce.

Recent Public Speaking

In 2025, I was supported by the Gane Trust to present at the European Federation of Art Therapy‘s biennial conference in London on my practice as an Art Psychotherapist working within the field of Social Prescribing.  This gave me an opportunity to share and learn with others as our profession looks to continue supporting fairer, more equitable health and social care systems across the globe.

In 2024, I facilitated an arts-based application of the INNATE framework, formulated by researchers at University College London’s ‘Social Biobehavioural Research Group’, inviting people to contribute to a collaborative group art work at the inspiring ‘Creative Health in Action’ conference at the Bristol Beacon.  This was an opportunity to take research data about creative health and put it back into practice, inviting people to use clay to consider what they feel are the ‘active ingredients’ needed to have positive experiences of ‘arts in health activities’.  You can read more about it here.

Consultancy & Advisory Positions

I currently consult on the design, development and delivery of the first regional Arts-on-Referral service for Children and Young People working alongside creativeShift and Southmead Development Trust, and am an advisor for both the University of Bristol’s Create for Confidence project and the North & West Bristol Locality Partnership’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health Advisory Group.

I have been an advisor to the International Journal of Art Therapy (IJAT) and a contributor to the British Association Of Art Therapists‘s (BAAT) InSight publication, both of which publish peer-reviewed studies and articles on contemporary art therapy practice.  I also formed and co-facilitated BAAT’s first Special Interest Group for Art Psychotherapy trainees and students.

Links