At ECHO we have been delighted to collaborate with scientists from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London to run 12 weeks of creative online ECHO Happiness Hub workshops.
The livestreamed workshops have been hosted by creative professionals, with several sessions featuring heart and brain researchers.
The workshops aim to provide families watching at home and in hospital a relaxing, distracting space to take part in a live creative workshop and connect with scientific researchers in a new way.
Many of the families we support have been at home shielding, in hospital or away from loved ones and our Happiness Hub was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide some distraction to the families we serve and our supporters.
Thank you to our science guests: Professor Serena Counsell, Dr Alexandra Bonthrone, Dr Thomas Day, Suzette Lust and Lindsay Munroe and creatives Jenny Leonard, Dr Lizzie Burns, Liz Hall and Anna Staufenberg for joining us on these workshops.
"Welcoming scientists and researchers to these workshops as part of the ECHO Happiness Hub has been a wonderful way of bringing researcher’s work to life in an informal and creative space, where families in the ECHO heart community can gain a new insight into their work while taking part together in a virtual activity such as origami, sound, drawing and mindfulness."
Samantha Johnson - ECHO CEO
I was motivated to participate as I have previously done public engagement events and absolutely loved it. I was particularly drawn to this event because lockdown has made me realise how important feeling connected is, and so I wanted to help even in a small way to do something fun and help patients feel heard.
Suzette Lust - PhD student King's College London
Didn’t manage to watch live? Don’t worry, all of the workshops are available to watch anytime on catch-up on the ECHO Happiness Hub page.