We are creative – are you?

When thinking about this editorial, we knew we wanted to say something about creativity. Working creatively is a valuable means of accessing embodied knowledge and new insights about ourselves, our practice and our workplace cultures that can be used to inform development and transformation. However, being new to writing editorials, we first decided to have a look back through the journal’s editorial archives and seek the wisdom of previous authors. In doing so, it was interesting to see that our first Academic Editor, Professor Jan Dewing, had written an editorial about being creative back in May 2012;we encourage you to have a look. Jan began: ‘Yet again I recently heard someone saying they weren’t a creative person... ’and this is something we both experience when working with others. Is this because the word creativity is perceived to refer to the arts – for example, crafting, painting, movement and music – rather than a broader understanding, as suggested by the dictionary definition below: ‘The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.;originality, progressiveness, or imagination ’(dictionary.com). Taking this more expansive perspective opens up the possibility for us all to perceive ourselves as inherently creative. It could be argued that this creativity has come to the fore as we have adapted to new ways of living and working during the Covid-19 pandemic. While this crisis has brought huge uncertainty and challenge right across the complex mix of health and social care services, what has been remarkable is the ability people have shown to change their ways of working, to seek solutions – and to do so at pace. We believe this reflects the creative nature of human beings/persons. Oliver (2009) argues that creativity is everywhere, as humans and the world are constantly engaged in a process of making. He contends that we should view creativity as ‘openness’, which is person-oriented (Massey and Munt, 2009). In this way, we create the possibility for participatory exploration of the social, cultural and embodied context, and for improvisation and transformation, by engaging in people’s ‘interests, curiosities and passions ’(Massey and Munt, 2009, p 305).