To launch our blog theme in June celebrating neurodivergence, Eloise Bonney, Engagement Manager at Lowry in Salford, Greater Manchester tells us how young people they work with are involved in co-creating their Arts Award projects from start to finish and how this enables facilitators to build a rapport with them. This encourages participants to focus on their creativity, make mistakes and share ideas.
At Lowry, we aim to make creative activities accessible to all young people in Salford and beyond, and an important element of that is providing equitable opportunities to those who may not have a positive relationship with mainstream education.
As part of our Socially Engaged Arts programme, we prioritise young people at risk of homelessness, young carers, care-experienced young people, and neurodivergent young people, or those with disabilities or mental health struggles that mean they benefit from a more nurturing environment to develop and grow.
Our participants are aged 11 years and older, so we find Bronze Arts Award a good level to start at. It is attainable by the majority of our participants, regardless of whether they have achieved Arts Award Discover or Explore. Additionally, if we start by working towards Bronze, we can adapt and use their work towards Explore if we feel this is a more appropriate level.
Co-created projects
Due to the needs of our groups, our work is founded on depth over breadth. This means we deliver consistently with the same young people who are part of our priority groups over a number of years, rather than working with a larger number of young people for shorter periods of time on a project-by-project basis. To do this, we have a consistent weekly delivery for all of our groups, and the projects or outcomes are co-created by them rather than prescribed to them. For example, we have been delivering creative sessions with young carers since 2011, and throughout that timeframe the group have developed short films, theatre pieces and poetry.
At Lowry, we frame co-creation as ‘everyone is an expert’. The young people are experts of their experiences and the facilitators or artists are experts in their art form. During a co-creation process, for example when creating the theatre production Who Cares, following the lives of three young carers, the young carers that were part of that process shared their experiences. These included difficulty accessing prescriptions on behalf of their family member as well as school staff not understanding the pressures and responsibilities they have at home. The artists, for example Lung Theatre Company, are experts in verbatim theatre (a theatrical form where plays are constructed using the precise, unaltered words of individuals interviewed about a specific event or topic) and wrote the script from hours of conversations and interviews with the young people. The young people were then part of the entire process, including casting the actors who played them.
The reason a co-created approach is important for the programme is that before working towards a goal, we are able to build rapport and trust between the staff and the participants as well as between the individuals in the group. This then translates into participants feeling safe to express their creativity, make mistakes and share their ideas with each other and the facilitators.
Our groups have a maximum capacity of 20 young people. Many of the young people who attend our sessions have had periods of time out of education, attend alternative education, are home schooled or speak English as an additional language, which means a more mainstream, structured approach can alienate participants through fears of ‘getting it wrong’ or can cause demotivation due to not understanding the benefits of education, especially through exams and assessments.
Young person centred
To work around these reservations or assumptions, our Arts Award delivery is integrated with our normal session activities, as far as possible. Our sessions are young person centred which means the group can put ideas forward of what art form to try and within that, which techniques and themes to explore. For example, our creative art group wanted to learn more about pottery and so following this suggestion, the group made clay tiles of their own which then expanded into making vases and small characters. This helps with their commitment and engagement in the group and the activities delivered, as well as highlighting a tangible link between an accredited award and activities they enjoy. A number of our participants may see education as not for them or something they are not good at. Reframing learning and achievements in a space where mistakes are celebrated as part of the creative process, their suggestions are listened to and activities are enjoyable helps the participants to see the benefits and positives of working towards an award.
Evidence capturing
Our groups always have two members of staff in the room, a lead artist and a pastoral support practitioner, where at least one is a trained Arts Award Adviser. This means while the lead artist demonstrates to the group and supports them to get creative (Part A – Explore the arts as a participant), our pastoral support focuses on capturing the experiences of participants taking part. Whether that’s through photos, short chats that can be recorded as an interview or encouraging them to use their Trinity Arts Award logbook to write or draw their thoughts. This way, participants have a record of exploring the arts in a way that feels accessible and fun.
As part of our programme, we offer a cultural trip for each group per term and then explore these elements through group conversations or creative reflection. This ensures our pastoral support practitioner can record each young person’s experience and make sure they already have a good start in completing Part B of Bronze, ‘Explore the arts as an audience member’. Bronze Part B would be set up as an activity in one of the sessions following the cultural trip and could take many forms, depending on the group. They might create a poster or leaflet about the cultural trip, produce a review, either written or verbal, or fill in the Arts Award logbook.
Confidence boost
By integrating elements into our normal sessions and programme delivery, we are able to support the group through Part A and B of Bronze in an accessible, creative and engaging way. We then share back with the participants that the activities they have taken part in, such as attending a show and expressing their views on it, can contribute to achieving a Bronze Arts Award. This realisation that an accredited award is not only possible, but they have already successfully completed a section, is a really helpful confidence booster and motivator to complete the other sections of Bronze. Some of our participants may have already achieved an Arts Award on other Lowry programmes, whereas for others this is their first time coming across Arts Award and so presenting it as achievable and fun is essential.
Having a confidence boost helps our young people complete Parts C and D, which for some young people may feel more challenging, especially around communication. Many of our young people already admire someone who is creative, they often talk about videos they like (anime is very popular), or someone they follow on social media, or an artist they listen to. Part C (arts inspiration) can be as simple as recording a ‘chat’ with the young person as they deep dive into someone they find inspirational. For participants who don’t want to be recorded, they can create a poster, leaflet or a video about their inspiration instead.
Overcoming challenges
Sharing their skills for Part D (Arts skills share) is usually the most challenging section of Bronze for many of our participants. We start off by focusing on something they enjoy doing, which has included make-up, drawing, dance or a drama game. If we centre it around something they enjoy, this reduces the importance of something being ‘good’ or ‘right’ and focuses more on sharing something they enjoy with their peers, as we usually do this as part of the session.
In the session, the participants have time to plan what they will share, and we support them to break it down into steps to share with someone else. Depending on the group and the activity, this can be delivered in pairs, where each participant shares their skill and learns their partner’s skill. If it is something like a drama game, we might do it as part of a session warm-up or focus moment.
For participants who really struggle with confidence or speaking to others, we can approach the arts skills share as a visual information booklet or ‘how to’ video. As they are familiar with demo videos from social media and YouTube, this is relatable for a lot of our participants and can be achieved with visuals and text, they don’t have to be on camera or speak.
Impact
Arts Award has had a clear positive impact on many of our participants, supporting progression routes beyond their time with us. Participants from our groups who have achieved Bronze Arts Award have gone on to attend colleges such as Pinc Creative College, which is an independent Specialist College, or take part in other creative offers in the local area they may not otherwise have attended. It also contributes to Lowry’s values of ‘nurturing talent’, ‘making a positive impact’ and sharing ‘the benefits of art and creativity further and wider’.