Bath Mind: Room 627
A 3-year creative wellbeing project
Website design, graphic design, creative consultation & workshop facilitation support
Date: January 2021 - December 2023
Project contributors: Bath Mind, The Dept. of Kindness, The Natural Theatre Company, The Soul Spa, #iwill, The Positive Planner
Project funders: DDCMS, National Lottery Community Fund, Co-op Foundation, #iwill
Project overview: A 3 year specially-funded project run by Bath Mind, providing creative wellbeing mental health support for young people in Bath through the transition from primary to secondary school.
My role: I was initially brought in to provide freelance website design services, and became a core part of the design & creative consultation team. I also provided support to other artist facilitators during workshops.
Website brief: Create a fun & playful website for the project to house create resources for young people & schools and provide a project gallery.
Website platform: Wordpress (website no longer present due to project end)
About the project
Room 627 was a specially funded project managed by Bath Mind, and developed with a core group of creative consultants and young people. The project intention was to provide mental health support for young people navigating the transition from primary to secondary school, through a series of creative wellbeing interventions, including:
Digital resources for schools to access and use with their students
A number of 6-week creative workshops in schools around Bath, facilitated by a host of different artists
Several one-off creative events for young people, held within schools
A final 3-day takeover event of The Egg Theatre in Bath, including an exhibition of all the project work
The creative activities used themes of kindness and compassion to support the young people with their worries, anxieties and struggles. A mixture of creative mediums was used in different workshops, including drawing, clay-making, textile art, writing, badge-making, animation and audio recording.
What I did
I was brought into the project as a freelancer, and was part of the core creative consultation team. I designed the website for the project, provided graphic & general design support for the team, and assisted with the facilitation of some of the workshops and events.
Highlights
Designed a website for the project, including digitising the “cabinet of compassion” - a space housing kindness resources for young people. The website had over 10,000 unique visitors a year during the project, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from young people, their parents and local schools alike.
Held a workshop to get a core group of young people’s input on the branding and website design, to give them insight and agency with the design process.
Provided ongoing website maintenance throughout the 2 year project.
Worked collectively on the project name and branding with the key project artists
Provided graphic design support throughout the project, creating both digital and print resources and materials for workshops, presentations & events.
Provided 6 weeks of arts & wellbeing facilitation support to artist Edwina Bridgeman in Shoscombe primary school, assisting the children in the creation of an exhibition piece which went on display at The Egg takeover in Bath.
Supported artists in the setup, execution & facilitation of a 3 day takeover event for young people at The Egg Theatre in Bath.
"Rhiannon makes everything look so good, intimate and inviting, colourful and joyous. Her style is unique and we have had so many positive reactions to our website"
— Ailsa Eaglestone, Room 627 Project Manager for Bath Mind
"Rhiannon took our brief to design a website alongside young people and listened superbly. She provided a session on web design for the young people and many have mentioned that this was one of their favourite activities when we asked for feedback."
— Ailsa Eaglestone, Room 627 Project Manager for Bath Mind
Some of the positive reactions
“This is amazing! As a parent with a child in year 8 (at Oldfield) and one moving to year 7 in September, I can see the benefit this will have on children and parents alike.”
— Katie
“This is so amazing, and so needed. The website is so easy to navigate and full of imagination, creativity and good information to support young people at a crucial time. Well done, I will be using this personally and sharing with my son’s school.”
— Becky
“I am bowled over by your wonderful website resource. It is so delightful and positive and calming. I think young people of all ages would find it helpful.”
— Claire