Using cultural heritage assets as the basis for enhancing health and well-being is well established in Britain. Although health benefits are clear, many programmes have been small-scale, poorly evaluated, and costly to run. Using a network of academic and third-sector partners, Scaling-up Human Henge will co-produce a place-based Culture Heritage Therapy Programme (CHTP) that will be evaluated and documented so that it can be rolled-out nationally. The focus is on prevention and intervention through social prescribing to enhance the well-being of people living with long-term common mental health disorders (CMHDs). Heritage assets in the form of prehistoric ritual landscapes, such as the henge monument at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, will be used because similar places are widely scattered across Britain, are easily accessible and safe, and provide ideal venues for structured performative engagements with cultural heritage. Mental health well-being is one of the most pressing issues facing society today. The NHS estimates that one in four people in Britain will experience poor mental health at some point in their lives, and living with a mental illness can lead to isolation and effect personal and social relationships. The cost of mental illness in England has been put at £105 billion per year. Finding solutions, whether clinical or through wider community activities and social prescribing, is high on the political agenda, headed by UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 on health and well-being to be achieved by 2030. Using heritage assets fits well with new and emerging local and national health intervention structures. This innovative and original project based at the universities of Bournemouth and Exeter includes collaborations with the Avon and Wiltshire NHS Mental Health Trust; English Heritage; Rethink Mental Illness; and the Restoration Trust. As a multi-disciplinary project it brings together specialists in healthcare, health economics, public services, social archaeology, heritage studies, and anthropology to advance knowledge and practice in relation to using heritage assets to enhance mental health well-being as part of public health policy. Scaling-up Human Henge addresses issues around combating health inequalities, treatment within communities, the reduction of social isolation, the value of therapeutic intervention to society, and how a network of locally-based CHTPs can be made to work from grass roots through to a strategic level on a national canvas. Building on the results of a Heritage Lottery funded study known as Human Henge, as well as other related projects, the highly experienced project team led by Professor Tim Darvill and Dr Vanessa Heaslip will co-produce a CHTP involving creative activities and participatory events at ancient sites. This will open up new ways of experiencing heritage in order to create and build relationships, stimulate self-awareness, and make connections across a range of social and physical environments. The co-produced CHTP will be run as a Pilot Study to evaluate the programme in terms of its delivery, effectiveness, scalability, and cost-consequences. Individuals with long-term mental health issues will participate, taking part in varied activities on-the-ground and on-line, including drawing, singing, dancing, making things, and thinking about the power of place. Their experiences will be formally evaluated using nationally recognized quantitative and qualitative measures, and those that wish to will be involved in reviewing and revising the programme, and analysing what the overall benefits are in economic and social terms. Using our experiences, good practice guidelines to support the development and delivery of future CHTPs will be co-produced and shared with heritage organizations. The guidelines will include advice for staff facilitating cultural therapy as well as suggestions for delivering successful CHTPs at ancient sites.

As many as 1 in 54 people are autistic (CDC, 2020). Autism is a lifelong developmental disability diagnosed based on difficulties in social communication and interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests (which includes sensory sensitivities). Autistic people may be seven times more likely to become involved with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) as a victim/witness or a suspect/defendant. Our previous research has shown that autistic people are among the most vulnerable entering the CJS, their experiences are largely negative, and police interviewing techniques need to be adapted to support differences in how autistic people remember and report events. Yet there is very little research on autistic people's experiences at court, despite there being several reasons to suspect that courtroom proceedings may be especially challenging for this group (e.g., the adversarial nature of cross-examination, and stress and sensory sensitivities that may be triggered in courtroom environments). To enable fair access to justice, it is important to understand the impact of standard courtroom proceedings, including cross-examination, on autistic people and their ability to provide their best evidence. It is also important to test how useful and effective 'Special Measures' (SMs) are in supporting autistic people in court. This may include the assistance of a trained professional called a Registered Intermediary to support communication, and the use of video technology to allow evidence to be provided remotely, by pre-recording or both. SMs can be expensive and time consuming, yet we know relatively little about how helpful they are for autistic people. In our research, we will work with the autistic and legal communities in a series of innovative work packages (WPs) collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. We will identify key issues that autistic individuals experience at court, test the utility of SMs, and co-create training and guidance for legal professionals to enable them to better support autistic people at court. In WP1, we will explore the lived experiences, views and perceptions of autistic people who have been through the court system, via surveys, interviews and focus groups, as well as a 'participative walkthrough' of a simulated trial. Findings will be used to refine our experimental work in WP2 to provide the first empirical test of the impact of cross-examination (with and without SMs) in autistic adults. Our focus will be on the quality, accuracy, relevance, and perceived credibility of autistic adults' accounts, as well as on their overall experiences (including state anxiety and emotional regulation). Informed by findings from WPs 1 and 2, in WP3 we will develop, evaluate, and refine an interactive training package for legal professionals and a resource of autistic people, in collaboration with these user groups. Many of the adaptations that are effective for autistic people will likely be beneficial for everyone. Findings will have implications for the autistic community (as well as those with other conditions such as ADHD, intellectual disability, and anxiety disorders), legal professionals, the family courts, social workers, and policy makers. Findings will also have implications internationally (e.g., the Witness Intermediary Scheme has been used as a model for similar initiatives in Northern Ireland and Australia, with further interest from Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa); and for the family courts, where SMs are incorporated into hearings. An extensive program of academic and non-academic collaboration and dissemination has been developed to maximise the research impact with a broad range of key users, with input from the National Autistic Society, Autistica, the MoJ, and Judiciary, as well as members of the autistic community, police, solicitors, barristers, judges, intermediaries, and family and criminal court representatives (see letters of support).