A

Artform

One of various forms of arts practice. Artforms may reflect a particular cultural tradition or traditions. 

Artists

Umbrella term for all those who work to create new, or reshape existing, cultural content; also see Creative Practitioners. 

Arts

All forms of creative and interpretative expression  

Arts and Creative Therapies

Treatments which involve art activities within therapy sessions. These sessions are supported by a trained professional. The main types of arts and creative therapies in the UK are dance movement therapy, dramatherapy, music therapy and visual art therapy. 

Art Therapy / Art Psychotherapy

Is an established form of psychological therapy delivered by trained art therapists or art psychotherapists. Art therapy participants use art to express their experiences, to find the words to articulate how they have been affected, and to support their wellbeing, and any social, emotional and mental health needs.

 

B

Beneficiaries

For the purposes of this grant, people benefiting from the funded participatory projects and arts activities as participants and/or co-creators.  

For WE Heal funding, direct beneficiaries are defined as Islington women and children who have lived experience of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and/or have a relationship with Islington VAWG sector services. 

 

C

Co-creation

A collective collaborative process in which several people work together as co-creators to devise and create new work.   

Community

A community may be based around a place, a cultural tradition, or commonly held interests or experiences. 

Constituted / Unconstituted

A constituted organisation is one where it has a legal document or documents that sets out its aims, activities and the processes by which it operates. This may include information on the members of an organisation, positions they might hold and how financial matters are dealt with. Such a document or documents follow agreed legal formats and are an organisation’s constitution or constitutional documents. An unconstituted group doesn’t have any of these documents. 

Crafts / Object art

Includes traditional and contemporary applied arts practices. Genres include, but are not limited to, ceramics, furniture, glass, jewellery, object making, papercrafts, studio-based design, textiles, typography, weaving and woodwork. 

Creative Practitioners

Those who work to create new, or reshape existing cultural content e.g., musicians, poets, illustrators, dancers, jewellery designers, storytellers, textile artists etc. 

Cultural Consideration

Being aware of and sensitive to people's cultural identity or heritage. It means being alert and responsive to beliefs, conventions or specific needs that might be determined by cultural heritage including e.g., the healing value of traditional cultural connections; also see Intersectionality 

Cultural identity or heritage

Can be based upon a range of characteristics and influences such as age, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, gender identity, nationality or geography.  

 

D

Dance

Includes forms of dance and movement practice that clearly have an arts and cultural focus (as opposed to sports and exercise-orientated aerobics, fitness or martial arts). 

 

E

Expressive and Creative Arts

Refers here to a range of artforms and cultural practices including but not limited to visual art (including photography, film, mixed media), performance (theatre, dance, music), short-form literature and spoken word. 

 

F

Film

Includes formats and genres such as short film, animation, dance film, documentary film, experimental film and moving-image art projects. Please note, WE Heal funding is not available for feature length films or films intended for commercial distribution.

 

I

Intersectionality

Is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression, and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people – gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability etc. 

 

L

Literary activities

May include short-form literature such as creative writing in varied formats, poetry, memoir work, storytelling, essays, comics, zines and journals. 

Literature

Includes both fiction and non-fiction.  

 

M

Multi-artform (including film)

Projects combine or feature two or more artforms, e.g., a project that combines music and visual arts, or a carnival arts-inspired project that features costume-making, dance, music and theatre.  

Multiple disadvantage

Refers to those people who face multiple and intersecting inequalities including violence against women and children, substance misuse, homelessness, mental ill health, being involved in the criminal justice system and the removal of children. It can relate to a combination of poor health and social harms which result in, or are often a result of, poverty.  

For the purposes of the WE Heal fund, the term ‘multiple disadvantages’ is not restricted to specific conditions or social situations but can include a range of health, economic and social issues which may be interconnected, and which together exacerbate an individual’s circumstances. 

Music

Includes sound-based artforms across all music genres for example classical and contemporary music; electronic music; popular and rock music; rap and hip-hop; orchestral and choral music; brass bands; opera; jazz and ‘world’ music. 

 

N

Nominate/nominee

If you nominate an organisation, you suggest them for a specific task, such as looking after grant funds on your behalf. If you do so, the organisation is your nominee. 

Narrative-based approaches

Involve enabling participants to develop their voice and tell their stories (or narratives) through art in their own words within a safe space and/or therapeutic setting.  

 

O

Oral and verbal artforms

Can include spoken word, and other genres of literature that are spoken or sung; may relate to specific cultural traditions e.g., chanting, ululation, mantra recitation, oral history, proverb tales, praise songs etc. 

 

P

Participant

A person who takes an active part in an activity or project. 

Participatory Projects

Using artforms where WE Heal beneficiaries are actively engaged in the expressive and creative process of making or producing arts, participating as primary or co-creators of the artistic outcomes and/or as project facilitators or assistants. 

Partner/s

Any other organisations or individuals which work with you to develop, deliver and run the project. 

 

S

Safe space

Is both the concrete and abstract space which ensures the physical and emotional safety and security of women and girls, allowing for trust, transformation and empowerment.  

Social, health and wellbeing outcomes

For the purposes of the WE Heal fund relate to transformations in mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, social connectedness, community cohesion and belonging. For WE Heal beneficiaries, such outcomes could be e.g., amplified survivor voice, improved self-esteem and confidence, communication skills, repair of identity, increased engagement levels or other measures of recovery. 

Socially engaged interventions

Are participatory projects that can include any artform which involves people and communities in debate, collaboration or social interaction as key to the art-making and/or creative expressive process.

Spoken word

Word-based poetic performance art (see also Oral and verbal artforms) 

Survivor

Is often used to refer to an individual with lived experience of violence or trauma who is going or has gone through the recovery process. It can be a term of empowerment for an individual to convey that they have been through and overcome an ordeal. 

 

T

Theatre

Includes all theatre genres, e.g., comedy, drama, physical theatre, street theatre, musical theatre, pantomime, circus, clowning, puppetry, mask, and theatre by, with and for children. 

Therapeutic arts-based activity

Includes but is not limited to formal art psychotherapy, trauma-informed creative programmes and socially engaged interventions whereby the participation in an art-making and/or creative expressive process is deemed therapeutic in and of itself. 

Therapeutic filmmaking

Can relate to the socially engaged collaborative task of collective filmmaking or to an arts-based therapeutic approach combining elements of talk, art and narrative-based therapies with the process of a participant’s personal filmmaking.  

Trauma-informed practice

Is an approach grounded in the understanding that trauma exposure can negatively impact an individual’s mental, emotional, physical and social development, affecting their ability to feel safe or develop trusting relationships. There are six key principles of trauma-informed practice: safety, trust, choice, collaboration, empowerment and cultural consideration.  

 

V

VCSE sector

The Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise sector, is sometimes referred to as ‘the Third Sector’, ‘Social Purpose Sector’, ‘Not-For-Profit Sector’ or ‘Civil Society’. It is an umbrella term that often refers to an organisation that is value-driven; whose primary purpose is to create social impact rather than profit; working to promote social, environmental or cultural objectives in order to benefit society as a whole.  

The VCSE sector includes charities (registered and unregistered), community groups, neighbourhood schemes, community interest companies, friendly societies, social clubs, many clubs, churches and other faith groups, and voluntary organisations. 

Victim-Survivor

Victim and survivor can have specific meanings for individuals who have lived experience of violence and other trauma. Women and children may choose to self-describe themselves as ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’ or both at different points in time. 

Within the criminal justice system, the term victim describes a person who has suffered harm (physical, mental or emotional) or economic loss which was directly caused by a criminal offence. It serves as a status that provides certain rights under the law.  

Survivor can be used as a term of empowerment to reflect an emphasis on overcoming and healing from lived experience of harm and trauma. 

Violence against Women and Girls 

Is defined as, “Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering to women including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public of private life.” - United Nations (UN) Declaration (1993) definition. 

Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) is the umbrella term which brings together multiple forms of serious violence under one policy strand: 

• Coercive and controlling behaviour 
• Crimes committed in the name of ‘honour’ 
• Domestic abuse 
• Female genital mutilation (FGM) 
• Forced marriage 
• Harassment 
• Sexual violence 
• Stalking 
• Trafficking for sexual exploitation 
• Virginity testing (of girls and young women) 
  
  

Visual arts

Include traditional and contemporary practices e.g., drawing; painting; calligraphy; installation; photography; printmaking; sculpture and typography. 

Volunteer

A person who takes part in an activity or task for no payment of money. A volunteer may also be a participant.