Whatcostfolks

20/12/2024

We'd love it if you could spare a few minutes to fill out
Community survey to help with fundraising and planning.

Fourth Wall Folkestone relies on funding to run projects like What Cost Folks and all the other fabulous events they run.

So if you have participated, contributed or visited Fourth Wall Folkestone please do head to the link in the bio

Thank you! X

14/06/2024

funding may have come to an end, but Sarah is still trying to keep alive with research until we can find a way to move forward again

If you were interested in our project, then pop along to find out more about how to get further involved in research next week x

We hope to see you there!

Posted • Next Friday pop in to find out more about how you can be involved in health and social care research with The University of Kent Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS).

You’ll get to meet the friendly CHSS team - Amanda Bates (pictured), Helen McGregor and Joseph Price - who can tell you more about what they do and how you can be involved.

Fourth Wall Director has been involved as a public advisor since 2021 and she’ll be there on the day to chat about what the experience is like too.

No need to book, just pop in and say hey! 👋🏼

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20/05/2024

The research indicated a lack of access to and knowledge about mental health and wellbeing services and gaps between severe mental illness and secondary care.

Local council decisions directly impact local people and national politics directly impact local issues, with housing, health and the environment being key issues raised by our community. 

There is strong evidence that the arts support wellbeing, and Arts and culture are a core part of Folkestone’s identity. The community highlighted the need for local funding for creative research methods and more arts activity focussed on wellbeing.

Fourth Wall Folkestone now requires further funding to enable us to carry on exploring creative action research methods in order to influence positive systemic change in arts and mental health.

19/05/2024

Today is your last chance to see the What Cost Folks? Findings Exhibition!

We're open 12-4pm at Fourth Wall Folkestone on the Old High Street

See you soon!

15/05/2024

We can't quite believe that this coming weekend is the final opportunity to see the Findings Exhibition !

We're open this Fri, Sat & Sun 12-4pm so see you soon!

We'll continue to share some of the key findings here on Instagram but it really is amazing to see all the physical contributions to our research that the community have made.

Oh and you can make a badge & take a badge too when you visit!

14/05/2024

As we come to the end of the 'What Cost Folks' research it has become clear that the community want to see more creative methods used in research and for Fourth Wall Folkestone to develop what we have learned from What Cost Folks.

However, future funding for Fourth Wall is critical to this.

One simple way you could help is to sign up to Easyfundraising. There is NO COST TO YOU - retailers make the donation to the cause. If you feel you could help in this way places click on the sign up link below. Thanks for reading!

Help us when you shop with 7,000+ brands. Join now.

11/05/2024

Our research highlighted that national politics directly impact local issues, with housing, health and the environment being key issues raised by our community.

Individuals need to be able to make their voices heard. Recently we had the opportunity to vote locally, yet two out of our three researchers were unable to do so, as neither had photo id.

We later discovered that you can apply for a certificate to enable you to vote. No one we spoke to knew about this either. More needs to be done to enable people to vote and to encourage people to vote.

If you can't afford a passport, don't drive so don't have a driver's license, are going through a name change or anything else that means you don't have photo id, Google 'voter authority certificate' or go to www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate

You will need to be registered to vote to get a certificate.

If you don't have a permanent address and want to register to vote head to the gov.uk website or Google 'vote no fixed or permanent address'

11/05/2024

Our community made suggestions for things that the local council could action to make improvements locally that would improve the wellbeing of local people.

Some were easy to implement such as introducing friendship benches, we loved that idea!

Bigger issues that were frequently discussed were around the future of the town and how the harbour development plans will impact people locally. There is very strong feeling both for and against with strong evidence that the plans and concerns for the future of our town are impacting the mental health and wellbeing of local people.

The harbour development is currently going through the final phase in planning permission and people can make comments until 16th May 2024. Head to the council website or just Google the planning number: 24/0505/FH

https://folkestonehythedc.my.site.com/pr/s/planning-application/a1nbH000000nsCKQAY/240505fh?tabset-185b1=3

10/05/2024

Our project is a learning programme called CPAR2 and the CPAR team are visiting us today to see our Findings exhibition.

CPAR stands for 'Community Action Research Project' and is funded by the NHS and run by the University of Reading and the Scottish Community Development Centre.

Our CPAR visitors said:

"I was most struck by one artwork (last pic) because it had a sense of inevitability - it's soul sapping to never quite have enough - but the power of the exhibition was in the amount of ideas of how to move forward, we have all these problems, where do we start? But there's loads we could move forward with, there's big stuff and stuff we could do ourselves"

"It was more than I expected, it was extraordinary! Team work, passion, a real time investment"

06/05/2024

Our final post showcasing artworks you can see at our Findings Exhibition.

We would like to thank all the contributors who made work for the research project. Your input was particularly important in shaping the research question and helping visitors to our first two exhibitions to see what local people see as needs and barriers related to the cost of living and mental health in Folkestone.

We'll start to explore some of the findings in forthcoming posts here on Instagram and you can also visit to see the Findings Exhibition on Fri Sat Sun 12-4pm until 19th May

Image 1 £50 (framed)
Image 2 SOLD
Image 3 £70 (mounted)
Image 4 £20 (mounted)
Image 5 £30 (mounted)
Image 6 £12.33 (mounted)
Image 7 £12.33 (mounted)

06/05/2024

Here is our next selection of the works included in the Findings Exhibition.

It was important to us that there were opportunities for people to make creative responses either as part of group drop ins and workshops, or created separately in thier own time. We wanted to encourage people to make art to express their thoughts about mental health and the cost of living in whatever setting best suited them.

We also ran multiple workshops out in community spaces across Folkestone as we were aware that not everyone feels comfortable coming to the Creative Quarter and to take part in workshops in a gallery space.

This collection is a mixture of works made in Fourth Wall and elsewhere, all responding to how the cost of living is impacting mental wellbeing in Folkestone.

Artworks are for sale. Please DM to reserve a work or see us in Fourth Wall Fri, Sat, Sun 12-4pm until 19th May

Image 1 £50 (framed)
Image 2 £80 (mounted)
Image 3 £50 (framed)
Image 4 £20 (mounted)
Image 5 £24.66 each (mounted separately)
Image 6 £5 (mounted)
Image 7 £40 (mounted)

04/05/2024

Make a Badge, Take a Badge and exhibition chats available by just popping into Fourth Wall Folkestone on Fri , Sat, Sun 12-4pm for the Findings Exhibition

We loved the serendipity when one visitor donated a badge then did a lucky dip and selected a perfectly colour-coordinated badge!