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ClowNexus at a glance

“ClowNexus - Creative Encounters for Mental Health” is a transnational project implemented by a consortium of ten European partners over the course of three years, between March 2026 and February 2029. The project is co-funded by the European Commission’s Creative Europe programme. 

ClowNexus is a continuation of a previously implemented EU-co-funded project titled “ClowNexus – Clowning Connects Us” which was implemented between 2020 and 2023.

© RED NOSES International - Miloš Vučićević

Partners

The consortium is composed of nine healthcare clowning organisations and one research organisation.

  • Lead: RED NOSES International
  • Cultural Welfare Center (IT),
  • CZERWONE NOSKI - Klown w Szpitalu (PL),
  • ČERVENÝ NOS Clowndoctors (SK),
  • CRVENI NOSOVI Klaunovidoktori (HR),
  • PIROS ORR Bohócdoktorok (HU),
  • Pallapupas (ES),
  • RAUDONOS NOSYS Gydytojai Klounai (LT),
  • Sairaalaklovnit ry (FI),
  • ZDRAVOTNÍ KLAUN (CZ)
© CRVENI NOSOVI - Stephany Stefan

Need & Goals

The project addresses the unfolding youth mental health crisis, marked by a significant rise in hospitalised children treated for psychological conditions. While growing evidence shows the mental health benefits of healthcare clowning – an applied performing arts discipline – for hospitalised children and adolescents, there is a clear need for specialised artistic methods and humour-based care approaches with measurable impact developed specifically for young psychiatric patients. 

ClowNexus will contribute to the improvement of youth mental health through developing new healthcare clowning methods and by supporting healthcare professionals in applying humour and creativity in patient care. 

In addition, the project will strengthen healthcare clowning organisations which often face limited access to training, exchange, and recognition, through providing diverse capacity-building opportunities.

Project Activities

The project will reach its objectives through the following activities: 

  • The project will develop and test new healthcare clowning artistic methods intended for young people in psychiatric hospital care. It will also develop and test new training tools for the promotion of art and humour in patient care intended for healthcare staff. The new artistic methods and training tools will be developed in 3 + 3 Artistic Lab events. These will take place between October 2026 and November 2027. 

  • The project will pilot a peer-to-peer dissemination model for sharing artistic methods and training tools between healthcare clowning organisations. The new model for dissemination will be used in 8 training events which will happen between February-October 2028. 

  • Throughout the project implementation, the research partner will test the recently released WHO-5 Well-Being Index for measuring the impact of emotional and mental wellbeing interventions.

  • Consortium partners will participate in various capacity-building opportunities throughout the project, such as local and international trainings, coaching, supervision, and study visits. These activities will take place throughout the project implementation period. 

  • Over the course of the project, the consortium will engage in advocacy activities for the deeper integration of healthcare clowning within healthcare systems. 

  • A baseline and an endline evaluation measuring the successfulness of the project will be carried out in the first and last six months of the project, respectively.

Viltaute Žemelytė
Head of International Programmes Department
T: +431318031314

FAQs

The principal goal of the project is to support young people’s mental health and well-being by creating new artistic methods that healthcare clowns can use when working with children and youth in psychiatric hospital care, as well as by developing new training methods for workshops with healthcare professionals. Additionally, the project aims to support healthcare clowning organisations through capacity-building.

The main project activities are: Artistic Labs for the development of new artistic methods and training tools; peer-to-peer training between project partners, impact measurement, local and international trainings for clown artists, advocacy activities. 

The primary audience of the project is children and teenagers hospitalised for psychiatric conditions. The secondary audience includes healthcare professionals and healthcare clowns.

The project will be implemented by 9 healthcare clowning organisations from all across Europe, as well as a research organisation. 

The project will last for 3 years and will be implemented between March 2026 and February 2029.

The project activities will take place in all of the project countries which are the following: Austria, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Lithuania, Finland, and Czechia. 

The project is co-funded by the European Commission’s Creative Europe programme.

You can follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn, and you can check out the ClowNexus website.

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