Debbie Brittain

Background

About Debbie Brittain

Passionate about life-long learning and meaningful engagement for all ages and abilities. Dementia advocate who champions the role of the Arts as a non-pharmacological intervention that benefits health and wellbeing. Gallery educator, program lead and project officer with tertiary qualifications in dementia care who is interested in non-clinical approaches and social prescribing to improve psychosocial wellbeing through participatory arts engagement and meaningful activity. Developed and facilitates QAGOMA’s award winning Art and Dementia Program to sustain quality of life of community members living with dementia. This evidenced-based wellbeing program provides capacity for social connectedness and intellectual stimulation in a therapeutic art gallery setting. Winner 2022 Queensland Mental Health Week Achievement Award for QAGOMA’s evidence-based dementia program, supporting psychosocial health of older adults, partners, supporters and those who are living with dementia.2023 Churchill Fellow - this prestigious fellowship awarded by Churchill Trust (Australia) supports Debbie to travel to the northern hemisphere in 2024, including USA, Canada, Ireland, England, Scotland and Denmark, to investigate best practice museum programs sustaining wellbeing of people living with dementia. It also enables exploration of museum programs that are partners in social prescribing or ‘museums on prescription’ approaches that support people to live well in the presence of illness.Presentations2023- MuseumNext ‘Museums, Health and Wellbeing’ global conference- Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine Scientific Meeting (ANZSGM) ‘The Arts - Ageing, Health and Wellbeing’- Lithuanian Museums Association Forum ‘Museums and Public Health’.2024- Healthy Ageing Initiative Webinar, The University of Queensland,'Museums as Public Health Assets'- Creative Brain Week Australia, ‘Thematically Connected and Locally Informed’ - sharing knowledge to celebrate how brain science and creativity collide, seeding new ideas in wellbeing and brain health across the life cycle.