Improving mental health and confidence with Arts Award

Mortal Fools is a creative drama and learning charity working across the North East and wider North. They use drama and creativity to support the wellbeing of young people aged 7-19 years old and deliver Discover, Explore, Bronze, Silver, and Gold Arts Awards. In this blog, Marketing Assistant at Mortal Fools, Elinor Bryant, explains how delivering Arts Award has improved the mental health and confidence of young people at their centre, and highlights Amaaya’s journey, who recently completed her Silver Arts Award with them.

How we use Arts Award

Arts Award has been a fantastic chance for young people to explore their interests, gain a recognized qualification, increase their confidence, and make sense of the contemporary world around them – all fundamental building blocks of wellbeing. Our sessions and projects are accessible to anyone, and we often work with young people with similar needs.

Often in our sessions, the small incremental achievements of improving confidence and capability can go unnoticed by an individual young person and yet, increasing awareness of progress in these areas is fundamental to wellbeing. Arts Award as a framework in which young people can bravely challenge themselves, provides us with opportunities to validate those achievements; through the structure young people are invited to interrogate and reflect on their learning and their growing competence. Consequently, they feel empowered and able to step out of their comfort zone.

’Making sure young people experience achievement and consciously notice their achievements is an intrinsic part of how we work.’- Kiz Crosbie, Creative Director, and CEO

Amaaya’s experience

Mortal Fools Youth Theatre member Amaaya recently completed her Silver Arts Award with us. She initially found the personalised nature of Arts Award a bit overwhelming, as she struggled to decide what specific skills she would like to focus on developing. With support she soon jumped in and now appreciates the opportunity and challenge it presented.

During Unit 1, Part A, Amaaya chose to develop her communication and public speaking skills by writing and performing a monologue. To support her Arts Research in Unit 1: Part D, Amaaya attended a range of workshops and worked with freelance artists to develop her performance skills.

In her Unit 2 leadership project, she decided to integrate her Arts Award within Mortal Fools’ Fools Fest event, a small-scale two-day festival where our youth theatre members showcased their creative work. Amaaya got stuck in; helping plan the festival – leading and coordinating discussions about production, marketing, events management and risk mitigation - we appreciated her valuable input, and she really found her voice!

’I did struggle with things I didn’t have experience in such as project planning and critical reflection; this is where I really benefited from having support from professionals‘- Amaaya

As well as performing in her own scenes during ’Fools Fest: Tyne Valley‘, she also led the hosting of the event. Amaaya had set herself the target of developing her confidence in leadership and she really presented the event in a clear, well-paced and sometimes humorous manner that put the audience at ease. She cleverly took the audience on a journey with her – and they were happy to go along with the ride. She was brilliant at facilitating the improvisation part of the show – which pushed her quick thinking and adaptability skills. Amaaya’s hard work and preparation ahead of Fools Fest enabled her to shine brightly and demonstrate her excellent leadership skills.

’I had never done any presenting to a big audience before and I was quite nervous beforehand but really proud I did this.’- Amaaya

What’s next?

At Mortal Fools, we provide young people with a safe and supportive environment to take on new challenges, experiment and demonstrate to themselves what they are capable of. We encourage them to feel the fear but give it a go anyway! Having the young people’s feedback has been crucial to us integrating Arts Award meaningfully within our programmes. We are excited to be named a Trinity Champion Centre in recognition of our unique approach and we are looking forward to embarking on the next chapter, with Arts Award celebrating young people’s big and small achievements along the way.

Watch our Fools Fest sizzle reel and see Amaaya in action on our YouTube channel.

We are always up for sharing best practice and learning regarding Arts Award, so feel free to reach out. You can find us on socials @mortalfoolsuk or drop us an email: info@mortalfools.org.uk

Interested in finding out who the other Trinity Champion Centres are for 2023 – 2024? Check out the recent blog which lists other centres you can learn from and will see featured over the next year!