Chris Drinkwater Creative Health in Primary Schools Award

The Chris Drinkwater Award celebrates creative health partnership projects in primary schools across the North East and North Cumbria. 

Professor Chris Drinkwater CBE was an inner-city GP in Newcastle for 23 years. Chris was also our previous Arts and Creativity Lead for the Child Health and Wellbeing Network, and when he stood down from the role the network he established the Chris Drinkwater Awards to acknowledge his generous contribution to the network and his passion for Creative Health, especially with primary school-aged children. 

Creative health approaches address health and wellbeing through engagement in creative activities such as dance, drama, visual art, film making, music, and heritage. 

To find out more about the Award, including examples of past winners and other creative health projects, please visit the Healthier Together website.

The Chris Drinkwater Award is administered by North East Museums, in partnership with the North East and North Cumbria Child Health and Wellbeing Network. 

We are thrilled to launch the 2025-26 Chris Drinkwater Creative Health in Primary Schools Awards in partnership with the North East and North Cumbria Child Health and Wellbeing Network. The Awards recognise collaboration between education and the arts for children's wellbeing in primary schools across the North East and North Cumbria.

Who can apply? 

• We are targeting this opportunity into settings in more deprived communities and where socioeconomic and health inequalities are most prevalent. 

• Schools that have been running a creative health project in collaboration with an artist or arts organisation. 

• Creative organisations already working within schools. 

• We are particularly interested in learning about the outcomes you have achieved, with emphasis on the evidence you have in regards to improving the wellbeing of young people. This means that we want to know about projects that are completed, or have been running for long enough for evidence of impact to have been gathered. 

How to apply:

To apply for this year's award, you can:

• Complete our online application form

Alternatively, you can email one of the following documents to Anthony.Gonzalez@northeastmuseums.org.uk

• A short (no more than five slides) Powerpoint Presentation
• An audio file, no more than five minutes long
• A video, no more than five minutes long
• An A2 poster

Applications open on Monday 15 September 2025 until Monday 2 March 2026.

Winners will be announced at an virtual awards ceremony on Thursday 26 March 2026.