Cumberland HDRC

23/12/2025

⭐ Looking back on 2025 and ahead to 2026 ⭐
What a year! Our second year has been incredible, and the support we’ve received has meant so much. We want to say a huge thank you for being part of our journey. Working alongside our Cumberland Council colleagues, our partners Cumbria CVS, Healthwatch Cumberland, University of Cumbria and University of Lancashire and the communities across Cumberland, hearing their experiences, perspectives and what matters most to them has been inspiring and rewarding.

Our team highlights from 2025
🎟️ Delivering our annual event with Westmorland & Furness Council, connecting academic and community partners.
🕵 Recruiting and inducting 15 Community Co-Researchers, strengthening community involvement in research.
📝 Supporting and seeing the development of research projects that aim to address determinants of health in Cumberland, such as the development of the neurodiversity and emotional wellbeing service at Cumberland council, caseload management tool for social workers, and a joint project with North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust and University of Cumbria to look at ‘How rurality impacts cancer outcomes’.
🎨 Launching our creative community engagement project The Art of Wellbeing, opening up meaningful conversations around health and wellbeing.
👩‍🏫 Delivering 42 full training sessions, 8 bite sized training sessions and 10 webinars, with fantastic feedback and clear learning impact.
🪴 Our HDRC team growing to a full team of nine.

🔎 Looking ahead to 2026 🔎
👋 We are excited to welcome our Community Co-Researchers who will be starting their training in January 2026. Seeing what research they want to take forward, and supporting them to develop those ideas is an exciting next step.
🤝 Rolling out new community engagement initiatives.
👩‍🏫 We'll be launching a refreshed training programme and a Cumberland Council staff Research Network, stay tuned!
🗺️ Working with our new research groups to improve our current understanding of our research priorities within Cumberland
🔋 Supporting with and delivering new research exploring the determinants of health in Cumberland alongside our academic partners and community co-researchers.

Wishing those who celebrate a Merry Christmas, and everyone a restful break and a Happy New Year. Here’s to an exciting 2026 🚀

19/12/2025

🎉 Our CCR inductions have officially been held!

Over in Whitehaven and Carlisle, our Community Co-Researchers had the opportunity to come together in person. Both sessions were full of energy, curiosity, and a real sense of possibility. Sharing perspectives, experiences, and ideas, it was a wonderful beginning to exploring the scope they have to shape future research.

Our project officer Lianna Barrie says "The rooms felt alive with discussion, laughter, and enthusiasm, making it a really positive starting point and exciting moment for what comes next."

We're so excited to welcome the newest members of the HDRC team and can't wait to bring us all back together for the first day of training in the new year.

🚀 Big things ahead!

28/11/2025

📺A glimpse into the creation of our community art exhibition The Art of Wellbeing!

🎨Featuring insights from artist Stefan Escreet, partner Rosehill Theatre and HDRC's project officer Lianna, what a wonderful way to culminate the project and highlight the collaboration behind it.

❤️A huge thank you to everyone who contributed their creativity. Made by the community, for the community.

Art of Wellbeing art project organised through Cumberland Council's Health Determinants Research Collaborative

20/11/2025

What a day! 🌟On Tuesday, we hosted our Connecting For Change event, full of inspiring conversations, learning, and connection.

We loved having council colleagues, academic partners, third sector and community organisations, and some of our CCRs with us. Your ideas, feedback, and perspectives are helping us make our work more inclusive, relevant, and impactful.

A big thank-you to all our amazing presenters who shared their insights and sparked new ideas across the room 💡

We’re so grateful for everyone’s energy and enthusiasm and we can’t wait to keep the momentum going and get ready for Cumberland HDRC 2026 🚀

14/11/2025

🎧The Art of Wellbeing audio now live!

We're excited to share that the audio from our Art of Wellbeing sessions, where we spoke about acts of kindness, health and wellbeing, is now available!

These sessions are a great reminder of how powerful creative methods can be for community engagement, opening up new ways to connect, learn and grow.

A huge thank you to everyone who took part and to the wonderful artist Ragged Edge Productions who ran the sessions with so much enthusiasm and creativity.

Have a listen and let us know what you think!

In The Art of Wellbeing project, Stefan Escreet ran hands-on, sociable, creative sessions with groups all over Cumberland. Participants were guided through making paper puppets and inventing character biographies for them. We imagined these characters lived in the place we were in and this prompted....

29/10/2025

And just like that, recruitment for Community Co-Researchers has ended! 🎉

Over the past two months, Lianna (Research & Communities Project Officer) and Becky (Research Officer) for Cumberland HDRC, had the very difficult job of shortlisting over thirty-five expressions of interest and conducting ‘conversations’ with prospective community co-researchers, in preparation for our next phase of the Research Plan in 2026. What made the job so difficult was all expressions of interest that were submitted, were to such a high standard that it was plain to see Cumberland’s communities really want to support change and be part of the journey in tackling health inequalities!

❓What is a community co-researcher?
Community Co-Researchers (CCRs) will support community-led research by working closely with Cumberland Council’s HDRC team. CCRs bring invaluable lived experience and insight, helping ensure research is shaped by the realities of Cumberland’s communities.
The aim of this role is to support the design, delivery and sharing of research that reduces health inequalities, builds research-active communities, and informs local policy and practice.

🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️I want to get involved- Are there other similar opportunities?

We are currently exploring another opportunity with the NIHR, who have an established Research Champions programme. This will be broader than the CCR programme with the HDRC, but it can be another way for you to be involved in embedding research and research activities in our communities across Cumbria.

📧If this is something you would be interested in, please contact Becky Clarke: Becky.clarke@cumberland.gov.uk

28/10/2025

Our Art of Wellbeing exhibition is officially HERE! Stop by to say hello to our paper puppet community and hear audio from their makers their thoughts and feelings about health and wellbeing where they live.

📅 25th October 2025 - 2nd November 2025

⏰ Monday - Friday, 11:00-15:00 & Saturday - Sunday, an hour before scheduled events

📍 Rosehill Theatre, Moresby, Whitehaven CA28 6SE

24/10/2025

📣 The doors are opening tomorrow for our Art of Wellbeing exhibition!

⭐️Don't miss your chance to meet Cumberland's newest community - your paper puppets

📆25th October 2025 - 2nd November 2025
⏰Monday - Friday, 11:00-15:00 & Saturday - Sunday, an hour before scheduled events
📍Rosehill Theatre, Moresby, Whitehaven CA28 6SE

It’s time to celebrate! 🥳

After weeks of connecting and creating, our Art of Wellbeing sessions have come to a close and now it’s time to join us at the exhibition!

📆25th October 2025 - 2nd November 2025
⏰Monday - Friday, 11:00-15:00 & Saturday - Sunday, an hour before scheduled events
📍Rosehill Theatre, Moresby, Whitehaven CA28 6SE

Our Cumberland communities came together to create incredible handmade paper puppets and share their stories about life in their communities, health and wellbeing. The exhibition features the unique creations and the powerful voices behind them in audio excerpts gathered along the way. For the curious, the creative, experience explorers, and everyone in the community, come and enjoy the creativity and voices of those around us.

Through craft and conversation, newspaper, felt tip pens, views and experiences created the extraordinary.

A huge thank you to everyone who took part, our wonderful venues, our artist Stefan Escreet at Ragged Edge Productions, and Rosehill Theatre.

Carnegie Theatre & Arts Centre
Yam Frae Yam Coffee Shop & Custom Framing
Cumberland Libraries Millom
St Bees Village Hall -Hodgetts
Keswick Museum
Colours Whitehaven
Lakes College
Florence Arts Centre
Kirkgate Arts & Heritage
The Maryport Settlement
North East & Cumbria Green Community Hubs
The Closet Carlisle
Harraby Community Centre
Cumberland Council

Access may vary to accommodate other events; we recommend calling Rosehill on 01946 692422 before your visit to confirm

17/10/2025

It’s time to celebrate! 🥳

After weeks of connecting and creating, our Art of Wellbeing sessions have come to a close and now it’s time to join us at the exhibition!

📆25th October 2025 - 2nd November 2025
⏰Monday - Friday, 11:00-15:00 & Saturday - Sunday, an hour before scheduled events
📍Rosehill Theatre, Moresby, Whitehaven CA28 6SE

Our Cumberland communities came together to create incredible handmade paper puppets and share their stories about life in their communities, health and wellbeing. The exhibition features the unique creations and the powerful voices behind them in audio excerpts gathered along the way. For the curious, the creative, experience explorers, and everyone in the community, come and enjoy the creativity and voices of those around us.

Through craft and conversation, newspaper, felt tip pens, views and experiences created the extraordinary.

A huge thank you to everyone who took part, our wonderful venues, our artist Stefan Escreet at Ragged Edge Productions, and Rosehill Theatre.

Carnegie Theatre & Arts Centre
Yam Frae Yam Coffee Shop & Custom Framing
Cumberland Libraries Millom
St Bees Village Hall -Hodgetts
Keswick Museum
Colours Whitehaven
Lakes College
Florence Arts Centre
Kirkgate Arts & Heritage
The Maryport Settlement
North East & Cumbria Green Community Hubs
The Closet Carlisle
Harraby Community Centre
Cumberland Council

Access may vary to accommodate other events; we recommend calling Rosehill on 01946 692422 before your visit to confirm

14/10/2025

NEWS: We have secured £2.5 million funding to lead a transformative three-and-a-half-year research initiative aimed at tackling mental health inequalities across the region. This marks a turning point for mental health research in Cumbria, where communities have long faced challenges related to access, isolation, and disadvantage.

22/09/2025

We want to hear from you! 👂

As part of the work we are doing, we are collecting evidence and data around our research themes across Cumberland. So far we have had a number research, consultation and evaluation reports from our partners and it's been really helpful for us to review and understand existing evidence relating to determinants of health. It is amazing to see the amount of research activity and use of evidence by partners and community organisations.

To deepen our understanding and make sure all voices are heard, we'd love to hear even more from you.

What information we're hoping you can help us with -

Anything that would help us to understand things like poverty, housing, employment, mental health, neurodiversity, substance use, obesity, food insecurity, or cared for children, particularly:

· Who experiences these issues and how prevalent they are?

· What causes, drives or exacerbates these issues?

· What services reduce or improve these issues?

This may include any statistics you might have, needs analyses, community maps, service designs or specifications, evaluations of projects, or wider research you might have conducted.

Not sure if what you have counts as evidence? Reach out to us and we can chat about it! You can find us at hdrc@cumberland.gov.uk or drop us a comment below.

We truly appreciate everything you send our way, every piece helps keep us informed and connected.

19/09/2025

Our Art of Wellbeing sessions have been making their way across Cumberland! From Whitehaven to Millom to Workington to Egremont to Gosforth, we’ve met students, young people and community members who shared their views on local life and what a healthier, connected future could look like.

A huge thanks to everyone who joined us, including our wonderful puppets!