People with passion
...getting the right people around the table
A draft report for Arts Council England on how to embed creativity in the lives
of looked after children and young people
Helen Chambers
Principal Officer
National Children's Bureau
Acknowledgements
With grateful thanks to:
Members of the advisory group
Emma Slawinski:
Helen Jones:
Professor Pat Petrie:
- The Arts Council England/Creative Partnerships
- Professional Advisor Department for Children, Schools and
Families
- The Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of
Education: London University
Deep dive areas
The local authority managers and staff who gave us their time and shared their
experiences and thoughts about the role of arts and creativity in the lives of looked
after children and young people.
The staff in the local authorities and partner organisations who worked with the
three agencies, especially:
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Jo Thompson and Wendy Picken - Integrated Services Team, Worcestershire
Peter Fletcher - Corporate Parenting Manager, Telford and Wrekin
Elspeth Loades - Planning and Development Manager, Bristol
Helen Smith - Head of Children and Families Support Services, Cumbria
And the three wonderful and dedicated creative organisations:
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Heather Williams and Hilary Davis
Paul Hawkins
Tim Fleming and Elaine Whitewood
- Myrtle Theatre Company
- Pablo Productions
- Whitewood and Fleming
....and their creative practitioners.
Also thanks to:
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Government Office for the West Midlands - Mandy Smith
Creative consultants - Sally Bramley and Mary Ryan
Date: May 2008
i
Executive summary
The National Children's Bureau (NCB) managed a programme of work to discover
how creativity can be embedded in the lives of looked after children and young
people.
The project investigated practice in six local authorities which were chosen to
represent urban and rural areas and large and small populations of looked after
children and young people.
Three specially commissioned creative projects were set up with arts and creative
agencies, all with experience of working with looked after children and young people.
The three agencies worked in their local areas on a variety of projects that included:
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a training programme and theatre performance
a DVD on health assessments
consultation about access to arts and culture
a film and music project with young people in residential care
a conference for local and regional managers and elected councillors.
The National Children's Bureau manager explored the approaches taken by each
agency and reflected on these and their relationship to social pedagogy.
This report discusses findings from the two strands of work and makes
recommendations to Arts Council England and cross-government partners. These
will inform a national strategic approach to embedding creativity in the lives of looked
after children and young people.
Key issues include:
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profile and leadership
cross-government working
research and evidence base
training and development of artists
training of care workers and health workers
local implementation and quality assurance
access
a social pedagogic approach
ii
Figure 1: Embedding creativity in the lives of looked after children and young people - a strategic approach
A regional
database of
creative
practitioners
Strategic crossgovernment programme
development
Sustainable local
programmes that link care,
education and arts
agencies
Resources and funding for
sustainable development
Research and development of artist
pedagogues providing child-centred
creative practice
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National profile
and leadership
Access
Creativity embedded in
the lives of all looked
after children
Strategic partnership working between
arts & cultural organisations and care
services locally and regionally
Quality assurance
and practice
standards
National
network for
sharing good
practice
An evidence base and evaluation
to inform commissioning
Training of carers, children's
services and health staff.
Arts and creative work may include:
Training and mentoring for creative practitioners
Creative practice training sessions as part of continuing professional development of children’s services workers
Joint project development that includes social workers, carers, and nurses to promote children and young people’s
emotional well-being
Taster opportunities for young people and carers – including opportunities to visit arts venues
Individual creative practitioner support for young people out of education and employment
Arts Awards schemes and access to mentoring for the gifted and talented young people
Creative practice/ getting to know you session for children, young people and elected members
Creative participation skills training for care leavers employed as participation workers
Creative skills residential experiences for young people.
Promotion of health and well-being
iii
Contents
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ i
Executive summary ....................................................................................... ii
Contents
..................................................................................................... v
Figures
.................................................................................................... vi
Introduction.................................................................................................... 1
How was the project carried out? ................................................. 1
The context .................................................................................. 3
Section 1: Findings from six local authorities ........................................... 4
Current practice ............................................................................ 4
Surfacing from diving ................................................................... 9
Section 2: Findings from three high quality arts organisations ............ 12
An invitation to work – a brief outline of the work ....................... 12
Opening the doors – what has helped and hindered
starting creative work? ............................................................... 13
Sitting at the table – who are the key people strategically
and operationally ........................................................................ 14
Building relationships and conversations ................................... 14
Lost in translation - a pedagogic approach ................................ 18
Sustainability – how can creativity be embedded
in the lives of looked after children and their carers? ................. 20
Section 3: Discussion of findings ............................................................. 22
Section 4: Recommendations ................................................................... 24
Profile and leadership ................................................................ 24
Cross-government working ........................................................ 24
Research and evidence base ..................................................... 24
Training and development of artists ........................................... 25
Training of care workers and health workers.............................. 25
Local implementation and quality assurance.............................. 26
Access........................................................................................ 27
A social pedagogic approach ..................................................... 27
Glossary
................................................................................................... 28
Appendix A: Deep dive interview sheet ..................................................... 30
Appendix B: Creative memories journal.................................................... 32
Appendix C: Deep dive key findings - a summary.................................... 35
Appendix D: Deep dive: children and young people’s plans ................... 38
Appendix E: Overview of three arts organisations ................................... 43
v
Figures
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Embedding creativity in the lives of looked after children and young
people - a strategic approach ................................................................ iii
The benefits of creative work with looked after children and young
people - a reflection of comments from local authorities...................... 10
Creative practitioner skills, values and qualities and roles of carers and
staff...................................................................................................... 11
Principles of good practice for contracting creative practice working with
looked after children and young people ............................................... 21
Language
The term looked after children is used throughout this report to include looked after
children and young people (5-19 years) unless otherwise stated.
A full glossary of terms and abbreviations used can be found on page 28.
vi
Introduction
In December 2007, the Arts Council England and Creative Partnerships funded an
investigation to identify:
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how creativity can be embedded in the lives of the approximately 61,000
children and young people looked after in the care of local authorities
the role of creativity in the lives of looked after children
how this work relates to the ideas of social pedagogy as described by the
Thomas Coram Research Unit at Institute of Education, London University
This investigative project with six local authorities and three high quality arts
agencies was carried out by the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) between
December 2007 and April 2008. This report summarises the project findings.
This full report provides an in depth exploration of issues encountered, as well as
covering the policy context and providing appropriate case studies. It also details
recommendations for future development for funders, cross-government partners and
stakeholders. A separate short document summarises key issues and questions.
Neither document aims to provide an extensive theoretical base, or evaluation of the
local work, nor present a national overview of effective practice.
A core advisory group has supported the development of the project and includes:
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Emma Slawinski: Arts Council England/Creative Partnerships
Helen Jones: Professional Advisor, Department for Children, Schools and
Families (DCSF)
Professor Pat Petrie: Thomas Coram Research Unit at Institute of Education,
London University
Helen Chambers: NCB project manager
How was the project carried out?
Strand one
In the first element of the project, NCB visited five local authorities and carried out a
number of phone interviews with a sixth. A series of questions and interactive
exercises were used to investigate how arts and creative activities are provided for
looked after children and to explore the role of creativity in their lives. Local authority
children’s services were contacted through the DCSF funded NCB Healthy Care
Programme and were asked to invite local key players, strategically and
operationally, to consider issues of effective practice, strategy and sustainability to
provide creativity in the lives of looked after children and young people (see
Appendix A). Young people in one local authority were included in the consultation.
Local areas were asked to identify their own understanding of creativity and invite
local agencies to inform their work. This included arts and cultural services, libraries
and museums.
Strand two
Arts Council England provided a project budget to each selected arts agency to work
with local children’s services for looked after children and young people.
People with Passion draft report
Page 1 of 46
These locally determined projects provided:
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training for foster carers
drama workshops for young people
consultation about creative and cultural provision for young people in a rural
area
development of a DVD on health assessments
a multi-arts project with young people in residential and foster care
a conference for elected members and strategic managers
input to high profile showcase seminars and conferences
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NCB's overview of the projects was gained through site visits and conversations with
artists, carers and young people, and information obtained from specially designed
'creative memories journals' (see Appendices A and B). This overview was used to
inform a learning seminar on April 3rd 2008 for the three arts agencies and core
advisory group. Professor Petrie invited participants to consider how their creative
practice relates to the ideas of social pedagogy, as described by the Thomas Coram
Research Unit. This report is informed by learning from that event.
Social pedagogy was described simply at the learning seminar as 'the point where
care and education meet' – providing nurturance, socialisation, upbringing, education
in its widest sense and supporting child development. European social pedagogy
training includes creative practice and the skills to help build meaningful relationships
that help children gain enjoyment, self-realisation and cultural inclusion. Its intention
is not therapy, although it will have therapeutic benefits. This is referred to as the
'common third' of training.
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Principles of the social pedagogic approach
There is a focus on the child as a whole person and support for the child’s
overall development
The practitioner sees her/himself as a person in relationship with the child
or young person
Children and staff are seen as inhabiting the same life space, not as
existing in separate hierarchical domains
As professionals, pedagogues are encouraged constantly to reflect on their
practice and to apply both theoretical understandings and self-knowledge
to the sometimes challenging demands with which they are confronted;
Pedagogues are also practical, so their training prepares them to share in
many aspects of children’s daily lives and activities
Children’s associative life is seen as an important resource: workers
should foster and make use of the group
Pedagogy builds on an understanding of children’s rights that is not limited
to procedural matters or legislated requirements
There is an emphasis on team work and on valuing the contributions of
others in bringing up children: other professionals, members of the local
community and especially parents
The relationship is central and allied to this is the importance of listening
and communicating.
Petrie P et al 2006 Working with children in care OU Press
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People with Passion draft report
The context
The Change for Children policy agenda and cross-government commitment to the
five outcomes for all children provides a national framework for improving outcomes
for all children and young people. This is taken forward through key partners and
policies including:
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the Children’s Plan: building brighter futures1
Aiming High2
National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity
Services3
the forthcoming Child Health Strategy4
Change for children looked after in the care of the local authority is driven nationally
and locally through Care Matters and its Implementation Plan.5 It makes the
structural and systemic changes needed to improve outcomes, based on what looked
after children say they want, and highlights the individuality and creativity of young
people to show their very real talents and potential.
The Department for Culture Media and Sport/DCSF funded project to provide a
cultural offer for all children 0-19 years of age aims to:
'..drive a powerful moral imperative – the intrinsic right of all children
to have opportunity to develop their talents to the full.' 6
The role of creativity in the lives of looked after children is acknowledged within
different disciplines and contexts in national and international research. This report
does not attempt to explain or explore these in detail.
Theory and practice
Role of creativity
Healthy Care
Partnership - creative
participation
To involve looked after children in services and
resources development
To engage with looked after children
To develop skills and talents
To engage in health education on key health topics
To build community engagement to address inequalities
in health
Creative work and play to help counteract the
consequences of abuse and neglect
To give voice, build communication skills, build
relationships and address stigma and discrimination
To provide nurturance, socialisation, upbringing and
education in its widest sense
To help children gain enjoyment, self-realisation and
cultural inclusion
Public health
Neurology and
brain development
Mental health and
emotional well-being
Social pedagogy
1
DCSF 2007 The Children's Plan: building brighter futures
DCSF 2007 Aiming High for young people: a ten year strategy for positive activities
3 DFES/DH 2004 National Service Framework for children, young people and maternity services
4 A child health strategy planned for publication by DH in autumn 2008
5 DSCF 2007 Care Matters White paper; DSCF 2008 Care Matters Implementation Plan
6 Arts Council England see at www.creative-partnerships.com/offer
2
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Section 1:
Findings from six local authorities
Key findings
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Arts and creative activities are not seen as a priority by looked after
children's services and are not seen as being accessible to all.
Local work seeks to provide arts and creative activities to enable
enjoyment, engagement, education and training, children and young
people's participation and promotion of health and well-being. Children
and young people's participation in service and resource development is
a key reason for engagement in creative practice.
There is limited engagement in creative practice as a focus to help build
relationships with carers and staff or to develop emotional well-being.
There is minimal evidence of understanding of social pedagogy and its
relevance to arts and creative practice.
There is minimal understanding and some anxiety among care
practitioners, managers and commissioners about a range of issues,
including how to engage with cultural services, what is appropriate arts
practice and how to assess quality of practitioner and practice.
Looked after children need support and encouragement from carers and
social workers to access opportunities to take part in arts and creative
work and to try out unfamiliar activities.
Arts and creativity are not generally recognised as contributing to child
development.
Current practice
Key findings are shown in this section under the headings used in the interview
schedule. A summary chart of key findings is in Appendix C.
Leadership and championing
Within the creative sector there was demonstration of arts agencies wanting to reach
out to looked after children, but finding difficulty in 'unlocking the door' of children’s
services.
'Other services and external partners tend to be much more pro –
active. Social care and children’s services don’t seem to look enough
outside of their services for support.' ((Head of Cultural Services Area 1).
Museums and libraries have made links to children’s services and carers through
family learning projects, supporting carers' literacy, as well as children and young
people's literacy (see Area 3 in Appendix D).
Leadership of arts and creative work was rarely found at a senior level within looked
after children’s services, and there was limited appreciation of how arts and creativity
could help children develop emotional and social skills. A head of service was
surprised that arts and creativity can play a role in emotional development and social
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People with Passion draft report
skills and wanted more information. Anecdotal evidence from the local authorities, of
the role of creativity in the lives of looked after children is provided in Figure 2 (see
page 10). It confirms all the areas identified in the Arts Council England brief for this
project, and extends them further.
In the local areas where creative work was happening consistently, it was often
because of the enthusiasm and commitment of individual senior practitioners and
managers. Links were more consistently made with education attainment and
participation. However, looked after children’s nurses saw creative projects as an
important means of building relationships with young people (see Area 6 in Appendix
D). In one area it was the leaving care worker who provided creative participation
opportunities, supported by her manager.
'..it used to work and we’ve lost it. I feel passionately committed to
changing this.' (Team manager Area 2)
Work is led locally by the passion of individuals, evidencing experiences from
children and young people to demonstrate success and gain project funding. If work
is championed by a single individual it may be lost if the person moves on, as feared
by people in Area 1.
Areas were pleased to have 'creative products' as outputs that provide evidence of
participation for inspections, as well as to demonstrate to elected members the ideas,
skills and achievements of children for whom they are corporate parents. Children
and young people valued DVDs, books of poetry, songbooks and music recordings
that they had created. Children and young people in Area 1 were great champions for
creative projects.
'I didn’t think I’d got a special talent. B said “we need you to help T
and N - the break dancers at Courtyard.” Now I go round and tell
people. I know it’s my skill.' (Young man Area 1)
Regional government offices have a leadership role in ensuring policy is translated
into effective local practice, challenging and supporting strategic local developments.
West Midlands Vulnerable Young People Policy lead attended the cooking club event
in Area 1 and has linked the work done by the participation worker with others in the
region, including the arts work done by Pablo Productions. She championed the
creative participation of looked after children across the region, including at the Care
Matters regional implementation conference. She is forming a professional
Participation Network.
Embedding creativity in the lives of looked after children requires a partnership
between disciplines and currently there is no single clear evidence base.
Strategic partnership working
There was little evidence of strategic partnership building prior to the deep dive
meetings. Area 6 has strategic partnership, evidenced in the Children and Young
People‘s Plan and in the Cultural Strategy. Partners include looked after children’s
education services, participation teams, nurses, Youth Opportunities Fund, youth
services and PCT staff (see Appendix D).
'Get the right people round the table – people with passion.' (Head of
Arts Education Area 6)
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Healthy Care Programme has encouraged local partnerships to include arts
agencies. Two areas were in the process of setting up their multi-agency
partnerships and will build on the links provided by the deep dive exercise.
Partnerships are, however, often unclear who to approach because of the
individuality of arts' practice and quality assurance. In Area 2 there are no arts
agencies or arts development officers.
Only Area 6 had any contact with Creative Partnerships – several areas did not
recognise the term.
Partnerships with high quality arts organisations that can provide a range of skills and
practice enable a trust relationship to build between commissioners, artists and
children and young people. A community music agency in Area 4 provides a model of
sustainable development supported by ongoing service level agreements,
demonstrating how creative work supports the Every Child Matters five outcomes
(see Appendix D).
'..you can't just hand it over and say get on with it – we have regular
meetings to review progress and iron out problems as they arise, we
develop trust in each other.' (Participation Manager Area 4)
Embedding practice in this way can help artists and children’s services to learn each
others skills and understand the needs and potential for development.
In Area 4, strategic partnership networks lead to:
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increased opportunities for children and young people
finding out about what is available and where
being able to seize and develop opportunities
enabling voluntary sector involvement
raising awareness of children’s needs.
Workforce training
All local authorities understood that creative opportunities are an excellent way of
encouraging participation. Some spot purchase from arts agencies to support their
participation workers (Area 2 and Area 4). There was evidence of employing
companies to produce DVDs with young people to show in schools, or to train staff.
This raised issues of quality assurance of practice for working with vulnerable young
people, and concerns about excellence of outputs and excellence of inclusion and
young people focused practice.
'Perfectionism can overtake what it’s about.' (Family centre worker Area 2)
Understanding the needs of vulnerable children and young people is an important
base for commissioning work. Work in Area 1 was delayed until a suitable cookery
teacher could be found – a teacher who could work informally in a youth centre, and
build a good relationship with young people and carers. These issues are explicit in
the evaluation report from Area 4.
It should be acknowledged that the individual creative practitioners involved brought
great experience, empathy, communication skills, group work skills, acceptance,
patience, flexibility and an inexhaustible supply of goodwill and enthusiasm. The
children's services brought detailed knowledge and experience of the participants,
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People with Passion draft report
the facilitators and the creative process. And everyone brought the essential ‘glue’ of
productive relationships: trust.
There were many ‘out of hours’ conversations going on between partner
organisations and individuals facilitating the projects to explore challenges, suggest
ways around problems and generally to support the creative process. This was as it
should be and simply reflected the processes that were occurring for the group. What
is essential is that the individual artists were able to be ‘held’ safely by the partnering
organisations, in the way that they were responsible for safely holding the group.
Workforce training for carers and arts practitioners is limited, involving generic
community arts practice, teaching or youth work. Social workers and carers are not
generally provided with arts and creative practice training, although several
practitioners used their personal enthusiasm to initiate the work. In Area 6 the
professional development of artists was provided through work placements and
apprenticeship schemes. Open College Network accredits artists for Levels 3 and 4 Arts and Young People.
Some areas had limited understanding of what could be achieved and what sort of
practitioner was required. There is no guidance, good practice principles, or
standards for commissioning or providing the work.
Areas identified that there is a need to encourage and support children and young
people who have little experience and awareness of arts and creativity, to enable
their uptake of cultural opportunities.
Carers and residential social workers have a key role in ensuring engagement and
sustained involvement – carers’ own experience and confidence in art and culture is
considered a possible obstacle to access.
'They often don’t know, or understand, about the importance of
activities and can be wary of it. Arts and cultural activities can be
about class and socio-economic status. If you have no experience of
it, why would you give it a go or encourage the children?'
(Manager Area 3)
Creative opportunities
There has been discussion on what services should be provided for all children, and
about why looked after children should be targeted.
'It’s an opportunity to play - especially important for our children who
may have missed this and it is hard for them to do it in age
appropriate ways without feeling embarrassed – the arts provides
this in a legitimate way.' (Manager Area 5)
In Area 1, the deep dive exercise provided an opportunity to identify what was
provided in the area universally and what was targeted. Opportunities of linking arts
agencies' targets to increase audiences from 'hard to reach' groups, such as Black
and minority ethnic communities and disabled children may also include looked after
children in some cases.
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Opportunities may be targeted through schools. However, many looked after children
may miss school, or not be confident to take up opportunities.
'..building on little bits of success – you have to push and push to get
them to try things. Don’t just listen to what they first say.' (Foster carer
Area 1)
Opportunities varied enormously across the six areas. In Area 6, there was a wide
range of cultural opportunities, including subsidised schemes for carers and their
children to attend theatre and arts venues. In Area 2, there was limited arts provision
in the authority, other than a small museum and local authority theatre. The mayor’s
appeal usually provided pantomime tickets for looked after children and their carers.
'It usually provides a positive experience – great for our young
people who have often had so many negative experiences. Gives
them some positive achievements. A chance to be good at things
they might not otherwise have tried. Positive feedback can be very
powerful.' (Staff in Area 5)
Several areas provided projects in residential units, bringing arts to where young
people are. Area 6 was beginning a project of cultural champions in each unit and a
five-session training programme to enable workers to develop their role supported by
the arts education service. Each cultural champion is provided with a laptop, 'art box'
of materials and equipment, arts sessions with the materials, and education and
development activities to try out. There is an intention to develop this model in youth
centres, health centres and other community venues.
'It provides an opportunity to learn skills useful for life – how to
get on with others, take turns, listen, be supportive etc.'' (Staff in Area 5)
'They can see change happens from their actions. Practice a
different way of behaving, looking at things differently, it helps them
delay gratification.'' (Staff in Area 5)
The Max Card in North East Region provides free access to museum services and
libraries for all carers and their families in the region. This was a popular scheme that
could be extended to other regions.
In a large rural county (Area 4) it was useful to provide special week workshops at a
fairly central venue. Transport is about one third of project costs – this is a lot – but
without it young people could not take part. It is important to recognise this and fund
appropriately. Sometimes young people do not want to travel out of their locality,
whatever transport is provided and that is disappointing for staff and commissioners.
Recently, there has been some feedback that young people do not want to be
‘singled out’ for activities. Again, this is difficult, as they often have such needs and
behaviour difficulties that they are not able to be part of activities that their peers
might join.
'It is almost like they need something extra to get them there – that’s
what we are offering. We also support any young person who wants
to get involved in local activities and encourage that strongly through
personal education plans.' (Participation manager Area 4)
Work is now being explored to provide a multi-media project with internet access.
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Access
Access to high quality provision is governed by the issues above: most areas
mentioned transport as a key obstacle. Taxis are part of the culture of how looked
after children move around. This does not prepare them for leaving care when costs
will not be met by the corporate parent. Nor does it provide children and young
people with the sort of family support provided by parents and carers, who often use
car journeys and walks as an opportunity to talk and build their relationships.
The cost of creative activities was widely discussed as a disincentive to carers to
support children’s attendance at theatres, concerts and performances. Similarly,
targeted activities, supported with additional staff were an expensive element for
cash-conscious care services. Work usually relied on specialist project funding,
requiring much time to identify and obtain.
'Often the hardest thing is to get the voluntary sector to front up grant
applications.' (Participation Manager Area 4)
National policies and programmes
Care Matters has identified the importance of positive activities nationally. Few of the
areas interviewed were clear how this will be provided. The national template of
Things to Do developed by NCB Healthy Care Programme for Care Matters will
provide local areas with the opportunity to develop this work area. Directors of public
health and directors of children’s services will be accountable for providing
appropriate access to opportunities.
Few of the authorities have prepared for delivering this provision.
None of the local areas currently use extended school provision to deliver creative
activities. Area 2 had identified the virtual school head for primary years to be
sympathetic to the work and may develop a programme for looked after children in
primary education.
The West Midlands regional policy lead for vulnerable young people used the launch
of Care Matters to involve the virtual school head to link the involvement of young
people in arts activities to building their educational achievement. He in turn linked
the work to his DCSF pilot status of providing one-to-one tuition and support for
looked after children to encourage enterprise and achievement.
Two of the local areas were intending to apply for pilot status of the cultural offer and
would include looked after children within their universal, targeted and gifted and
talented provision. All areas stated that looked after children will need significant
support from carers and a wide range of children’s services for them to have the skills
and resources to take up the offer.
Surfacing from diving
All of the five local areas we visited appreciated the experience of bringing partners
to the table.
Three decided to make a bid for the youth cultural offer and one was successful. One
area used information gathered to make an 'Opportunities for Children' list and three
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Page 9 of 46
are planning new projects to follow on from their day together. The area with very
limited music provision is looking at developing a singing project with carers and
young people as part of the Youth Music Sing Up. NCB is working with Gallery 37+ to
build a teenage parents and babies project to support early attachment and bonding.
All partners identified the need to work together strategically and to ensure their work
is included in cross-agency planning systems.
Figure 2: The benefits of creative work with looked after children and young
people - a reflection of comments from local authorities
Social and emotional
outcomes
Working together
Leadership
Supporting each other
Relying on others and
being relied upon
Making friends
Building confidence
Resolving
disagreements
Accepting differences
Experiencing a positive
and personal change
Showing care
Respecting boundaries
Self-reflective and selfevaluating in a non
critical manner
A way of staying in touch
with other young people.
Improved health and
well-being
Page 10 of 46
Education
outcomes
Motivation
Increased young
men being involved
in literature
Gain qualifications
and accreditation
Learn new skills interviewing, life skills
Young people gain
nationally recognised
qualifications
Arts Award
Personal development
Fun!
Expression
Discover and develop talents
skills and abilities
Skills for life e.g. getting on with
others, take turns, listen, be
supportive etc
Being part of something and
feeling valued
Opportunity to explore alternatives
in a safe way – try out different
ways of being
Non threatening and usually non
competitive
Breaks down barriers personally
and between group members
Experiences are more visible, but
children and young people are
anonymous
Positive experience –positive
feedback can be very powerful
Self awareness
Self efficacy as they see change
happen from their actions
Learning about the value of
putting effort into doing things
Being able to talk about things
that have happened in the past
and to talk about their future.
Builds self esteem
An opportunity to play
Try out different solutions or
explore difficulties at a distance happening to an imaginary
character
People with Passion draft report
Figure 3: Creative practitioner skills, values and qualities and roles of carers
and staff
These lists were compiled from the deep dive Interviews.
Skills of creative practitioners
who work with looked after
children
Communication
Knowledge of arts and practice
skills
Flexibility, good improviser
Thinking outside the box
Questioning/challenging
Extensive practical experience
Understanding young people
Team work
Negotiation
Understanding of group work and
different needs of group
Background knowledge of the work
Planning and organisation
Mentoring and reaching children
and carers in different ways
Education/teaching skills
Ability to impart knowledge and
passion for subject
Values and qualities of creative
practitioners who work with
looked after children
Intuition and empathy
Open-minded
Interest in young people
Patience and a cool head
Roles played by carers and other social
care staff in supporting children and
young people in creative projects and in
relating to creative practitioners
Social workers:
Understanding benefits of creative projects
Overcoming barriers with carers and young
people
Emotional fallout and long term support
Preparation for the project with young people
and carers
Support for carers
Foster carers:
Support and interest
Sharing in activity
Look after travel arrangements sometimes
Activity support staff:
Share responsibility
Contact with other support staff
Promote to other agencies/young people
Promote opportunities and support in a
practical way
Placing children and young
peoples’ needs as priority
Tenacity and resourcefulness
Responsive
Innovative
Personal charisma
Commitment and motivation
Enjoyment/inspiration
Enthusiasm and creativity
People with Passion draft report
Page 11 of 46
Section 2:
Findings from three high quality arts
organisations
Key findings







Embedding creative activity requires strategic partnership working between
creative organisations and children's services to build understanding and
experience of how arts and creativity can improve the lives of looked after
children.
Being part of a nationally recognised project helps artists and creative
practitioners to gain access to children's services and to develop
programmes for looked after children.
The ways in which artists are working with children and young people,
carers and partner agencies suggests an opportunity to develop the role of
artist pedagogue to improve outcomes for looked after children.
The three arts agencies demonstrated different approaches which can all
inform the role of artist pedagogue.
There is a need for an arts and creativity champion in children's services as
a focus for project development and management.
There is a need for greater awareness and training within services for
looked after children about the role of creativity in the lives of looked after
children.
The support of foster carers, social workers and participation workers is
important in enabling looked after children and young people to participate.
An invitation to work – a brief outline of the work
Myrtle Theatre Company built on their experiences of working in the care setting to
address a number of barriers to effective engagement for children and young people,
in order to fully participate in a creative project. Their focus was to develop an
effective training programme for carers, support workers, and artists. This culminated
in a two-day theatre event led by specially recruited and trained theatre practitioners.
These included musicians, choreographers and directors who work with the company
on a regular basis and provide child-centred practice focused on providing quality
performance. A theatre piece was developed and performed by the participants at
the end of the two days. It explored the role of creativity in supporting emotional wellbeing and resilience. The administrative director managed wider relationships with
children and carers, coordinated transport etc and acted as listening ear for all. The
work is highly regarded locally, regionally and nationally. It is not linked or
strategically embedded in the work of the two local authorities involved, and is
subject to individual commission or personal patronage of the company’s artistic
patron.
Pablo Productions focused on the tasks of delivering high quality products and
developing teamwork between participants and shared ownership and
responsibilities with staff. Young people gained skills, confidence and clear working
and personal boundaries as well as awareness of future work opportunities and pride
Page 12 of 46
People with Passion draft report
in the work they achieved. The agency ensured children’s services put in place the
necessary support to ensure safe working practice, involving a looked after children’s
nurse, a manager from care services, a residential home manager and youth support
workers. The agency led two projects, one in Worcestershire, where young people
produced an animation DVD on the health assessments process; the other in Telford
and Wrekin where 16-19 year olds explored their understanding of the 'cultural offer'.
Whitewood and Fleming worked with young people in residential and foster care in
a hired theatre space supported by a participation worker. The head of service for
children and families in Cumbria networked the arts organisation with managers of
service in fostering and residential care and with the looked after children’s education
service. Work is ongoing with strategic managers and elected members to raise
awareness of the importance of the work and the need to embed its provision in the
lives of looked after children and young people. The company organised a high
profile Cumbrian Conference, Finding the Key, at the end of May 2008. This was in
partnership with the pilot group of looked after children, with contributions from Arts
Council England, North West, National Children’s Bureau, Creative Partnerships'
national office, and Lincolnshire and Birmingham local authorities.
All agencies ensured staff held enhanced Criminal Records Bureau clearance and
worked to Keeping Arts Safe guidelines.
An overview of the arts organisations can be seen in Appendix E. Individual reports
from the arts organisations will be available at the end of the local project work in July
2008.
Opening the doors – what has helped and hindered starting
creative work?
'Care workers are so bound by procedures that it can distance them
from the child: creative contact can keep a safe contact.' (Whitewood
and Fleming).
All projects found it essential to have a known contact in a senior position within
the local authority, to influence buy in. The involvement and creditability of being part
of a national project with National Children’s Bureau helped open the doors to local
authorities, who had little previous experience of working with arts agencies. This
was particularly relevant for Whitewood and Fleming who had spent more than a
year trying to work in the region and had employed a consultant with strategic
children’s services experience who could 'speak the language of children’s services'.
Local authorities particularly engaged with projects for a variety of reasons including
interest in:




being involved in innovative, nationally recognised work
development of resources
staff training
working with known respected local practitioners.
People with Passion draft report
Page 13 of 46
Sitting at the table – who are the key people strategically
and operationally
The support of a high level strategic manager who is able to build connections
across services was an important part of the successful development of Whitewood
and Fleming’s work. Similarly Telford and Wrekin’s Head of Safeguarding ensured
the corporate parenting manager linked work to support colleagues to achieve the
projects’ outputs with young people in residential care. The work in Worcestershire
was implemented through the Healthy Care Partnership, following consultation with
young people and was managed within the integrated children and young people‘s
team, providing a high level of multi-agency support (see page 17).
Myrtle Theatre Company built on their local track record and links with the strategic
planning manager to involve fostering services as a means of recruiting children for
the project and to work with carers. There was limited response to the project,
despite direct mailing to carers and children, so the neighbouring authority of North
Somerset was also invited to take part, through existing links with foster carers and
services managers.
Work in a large rural county such as Cumbria needed to focus on a smaller
geographical area. It was targeted to a group of young people in the southern end of
the county. It is hard to provide equal access across the county without providing
residential workshops, or locality roadshows.
Building relationships and conversations
Pablo Productions established a clear agreement with children’s services to provide
support staff for young participants. Care workers, looked after children’s nurses,
youth workers and other children’s services staff were part of the Worcestershire
team – supported by therapists. This is reflected in the comments from the looked
after children’s nurse on therapeutic benefits. In Telford and Wrekin the care workers
supported young people, including on their visit to London. The arts agency took
complete responsibility for managing the task and involving young people 'what goes
on outside of the room is not our business – unless it affects our work together'
(Pablo Productions). The work was intended to deliver a product of which young
people and the wide staff team were proud. All young people gained a Bronze Arts
Award for their work and some will gain the Silver Award, following their work at a
regional seminar. The agency also employed a care leaver as co-project manager.
Young people in the project 'greatly valued her input, as someone who could identify
with their situation' (Pablo Productions).
Myrtle Theatre Company delivered training sessions to foster carers. These
sessions provided the chance to experience and inform the range of activities in
which the children would be engaging, as well as provide an opportunity for the foster
carers to contribute to the final performance. In addition, the foster carers were able
to give relevant information about each of the children, ensuring that suitable support
was in place. Myrtle believes that:
'..it is valuable when carers accompany children’s learning – they
learn together…' (Myrtle Theatre Company)
Page 14 of 46
People with Passion draft report
In developing the project, Myrtle had endeavoured to work with carers to support
their well-being, build their communication skills, and support their relationships with
the children and young people. Myrtle believes that carers need and deserve work
that increases their aspirations and opportunities and gives voice to their, at
times, hidden work of care. In addition, there were training days for the ten members
of the creative and support team. These included input from a service manager and
clinical psychologist and focused on Myrtle Theatre Company’s recent learning about
'a pedagogic approach' supplied by the company to develop skills appropriate to
working with children in care. Myrtle took responsibility for the care of the young
people and ensuring their safe travel. At the end of each day of delivery, a de-brief
session was held, to inform future practice. A longer reflective practice session
was held when the training event was completed.
Whitewood and Fleming spent time building a relationship with the head of service
for children and families and the young people’s participation worker. Their work in
the residential home and early work with individual young people led to the company
being commissioned to deliver a DVD participatory project on foster carer recruitment
this summer. It also led to consideration of the training of social workers in the
promotion of emotional well-being and building of positive relationships with children
and young people in their care. The Getting to know you! event for young people and
elected members led to young people being invited to the meeting of Cumbria
Council to show their work and discuss the issues raised.
Involving young people in care in creative activities in Bristol
Local authorities may not be proactive in seeking out creative practice for children
in care. Without the direct approach to us from the Myrtle Theatre Company, we
would probably have relied on carers (and schools) to make arrangements for
individual children in their care, to engage in local creative activities to suit their
child’s needs.
The support required for young people should not be underestimated - because
of their social and emotional needs as young people and in particular as young
people in care. This support can, with planning and a cooperative approach within
the local authority, potentially be provided from willing partners such as
participation workers, youth and play workers, and Connexions staff.
A project coordinator from within the local authority, with sufficient capacity to
devote to the project, is essential - to promote and publicise the event (we found
mail shots to all children in the right age range worked very well), as a
reference/advice point for local authority staff, carers, young people, and
providers: to ensure that checks, permissions etc are all in order: to open doors
and to troubleshoot throughout the life of the project.
Young people gain a lot from working in the creative arts - enjoyment, self
confidence, self esteem, possible accreditation, material for curriculum vitae.
What is also hugely important is the interaction with the committed, caring,
thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent, creative and informed people - adults and
peers - with whom they have contact throughout creative arts projects.
Planning and Development Manager, Bristol City Council
People with Passion draft report
Page 15 of 46
Both Myrtle and Pablo Productions have a regional reputation for working with a
range of young people, including those looked after in care; Myrtle also work with a
wide range of children and young people, as well as adults. Whitewood and
Fleming’s work frequently spans communities. The company also work in primary
and secondary schools and similarly have a regional reputation from their earlier
work in another region - mainly focused on work with looked after young people.
All practitioners aim to provide child-centred learning towards a shared goal – using
creative arts practice that develops teamwork and encourages talents to flourish.
Your imagination is your single most important tool - you can use it in
every aspect of your life' (Whitewood and Fleming)
In observations of practice and conversations with participants it was clear that the
leadership role of the practitioner is a key element. Arts practitioners described
being 'friendly not friends' and providing 'empathy with children not sympathy for
them'. All have highly flexible approaches to achieving the contracted outcomes,
shaped by the creative practitioners’ skills and working styles.
'Every contribution is valued - however small - miss the contributionmiss the child.' (Whitewood and Fleming)
Artists use a range of skills additional to their high quality arts practice. These include
those identified in youth work, community arts and performance (see Figure 3). Work
often draws on participants’ life experiences. Myrtle and Whitewood and Fleming
provide an enhanced 'care and support' role within their practice and maintain
contacts beyond the session, offering other opportunities for participation in projects.
As well as providing direct work with young people, all the agencies have experience
of providing training to a range of children and young peoples’ practitioners locally.
During the delivery of the project, Myrtle Theatre Company were able to develop their
practice of building strong links with the children by sharing lunch times together in
line with foster care culture. The sharing of chores and everyday living is a feature
of pedagogic practice, a development made by accident by Whitewood and Fleming
in their project - to great benefit (see page 19).
All agencies have enabled young people to celebrate and showcase their work.
Pablo and Whitewood and Fleming have also produced a series of 'products' as part
of their work e.g. DVD and booklet, postcards and DVD. Theatre undoubtedly makes
a high impact on the audience, but has less identifiable products. The theatre
practice model used to deliver training by Myrtle is well respected by a range of
children’s services practitioners. It enables practitioners to explore a range of issues
that impact on the emotional well-being of looked after children and enables
practitioners to build their skills as champions.
All agencies have developed a methodology that aims to provide a high quality
child-centred creative care and arts process delivering a high quality creative
product. It is clear from discussion with participants and carers, as well as service
managers and participating staff that pride in the end result is a key component of
success.
Page 16 of 46
People with Passion draft report
'Whilst participation for it’s own sake can be valuable, we believe a
focused outcome, something to take pride in, is more beneficial.'
(Myrtle Theatre Company)
University of West of England have provided robust evaluation of Myrtle Theatre
Company’s efficacy in improving the well-being of looked after young people through
development of key skills that impact on health and well-being. There is currently no
evaluation of the efficacy of how creativity promotes well-being for children who are
neglected, abused or looked after in care, or how creative practitioners can work with
carers and social workers. Arts Council England’s work with young offenders has
been well evaluated by University of Central Lancashire, as providing motivation and
engagement with education and employment and helping to build positive
relationships. It does not, however, examine the viability and impact of creative
practices in building emotional well-being and relationships.
Thomas Coram Research Unit research on European models of pedagogy has not
so far examined the role of arts and creative practice in the training of care workers –
known as 'the common third'.
West Midlands Regional Government Office has been proactive in encouraging
creative practice and has provided opportunities for showcasing and disseminating
the work undertaken. Similarly, Government Office South West has been supportive
of Myrtle Theatre Company. Both are links formed through NCB Healthy Care
Programme and the implementation of Care Matters.
Producing a DVD in Worcestershire
The outcome at the end of the project far exceeded all of our expectations, in
terms of the product, but also in relation to the benefits to the young people
and supporting staff members.
As a team of professionals working with looked after young people we also
learned an enormous amount, both about the project process, and also in the
developing of relationships between the adults involved, as well as with the
young people. We were all in the same boat in terms of the making of the
DVD and we all found certain aspects demanding in different ways. We
benefited from working with a different group of professionals coming from a
completely different professional culture.
The project as a whole benefited the young people enormously. They had
clearly enjoyed being involved in the whole process and their self-esteem and
emotional wellbeing was enhanced. They also, very rightly, clearly saw their
own contributions as valuable to the successful outcome of the project. They
really invested in it and are keen to see it have an impact.
The whole group contributed to the organisation and running of the premiere
showing of the film, and as a panel answered questions of the invited
audience about the process; something which perhaps they would not have
been able to do as comfortably, before embarking on the project.
A looked after children's nurse and a service manager in Worcestershire
People with Passion draft report
Page 17 of 46
Lost in translation - a pedagogic approach
Social pedagogy has been described as 'the point where care and education meet'.
Working with the 'wholeness of the child' to provide nurture, socialisation and
upbringing - education in its widest sense to support child development. A major part
of European social pedagogue training is the 'common third' in which creative
practices are used to build relationships and help children gain enjoyment, selfrealisation and cultural inclusion. Its intention is not therapy, though it will have
therapeutic benefits.
Finding the key to unlock the creativity and spark imagination –
requires a triangle of trust: between practitioners and young people
and the creative practice for change. (Whitewood and Fleming)
'If pedagogy is based in human relationships, the quality of those
relationships is linked to the quality of the interpersonal
communication between children and staff. This is fostered through
learning and dialogue.' 7
The term 'pedagogue' and 'social pedagogue' can be difficult to pronounce for those
unfamiliar with the terms and they are not ones that easily translate into the English
language.
The culture of care is one that was touched upon by all of the agencies as being
one where care practitioners often do not feel valued or heard. The creative work
gave some workers an opportunity to build new relationships and to have a wider
perspective on their role in improving children and young peoples’ life chances, and
so value themselves. Carers enjoyed opportunities to meet in the Myrtle work.
'..its really nice to meet other carers- I found groups I did not know
about.' (Carer : Myrtle Theatre Company)
Another element of the care culture that was experienced in some projects was the
reliance on taxis as a means of transport. This is demonstrated in the health
assessment video (Pablo), where the key conversations between the young people
happen in a taxi.
All creative practitioners provided child-focused learning that had clear benefits for
participants - carers identified change in participants’ self-esteem, ability to manage
and contain feelings, and socialising, They also saw development of creativity,
imagination, talents, skills and abilities in a safe and secure environment.
Creative practitioners varied in their approach. Pablo provided creative skills and safe
boundaried care and ensured safe containment with the support of a range of co –
workers from children’s services. This high quality practice was considered to have
therapeutic benefits and work was focused on developing a set of life skills to
increase motivation and employability - an approach similar to that suggested in the
Creative Care model being considered in a West Midlands authority.
All practitioners identified the importance of reflective practice, and some found the
creative memories journals useful for helping to prompt this and record the process.
7
Petrie P et al 2006 Working with children in care p24 OU Press
Page 18 of 46
People with Passion draft report
'It’s the debriefs and reflection that are the teaching...' (Whitewood and
Fleming)
Myrtle and Whitewood and Fleming have focused their work on supporting the
emotional development of children and young people through building boundaried
ongoing relationships that support and provide nurture for the child’s development.
Work is generally based on issues and ideas raised by participants as a means of
building initial relationships. Myrtle have expertise working with foster carers to build
their confidence and give them a voice as champions for children and for their work
as carers who are emotionally literate and skilled. It can provide an opportunity for
children and carers to learn together, build and share their passions and enthusiasms
and encourage conversation and dialogue. This sensitive and responsive care-giving
builds relationships as an integral element of the creative work. It indicates practice
demonstrating a pedagogic approach.
Unforeseen changes leading to unexpected positive outcomes...
We booked a room for all our sessions with young people. We booked it from 12
noon – 5pm to allow for set up and de-rig time for a series of 2/2½ hour sessions.
The participation worker from the local authority on hearing the session times,
naturally notified the young people and organised transport to suit. We then realised
our mistake – we had inadvertently organised a five-hour session with looked after
children of all ages, all at the same time!
We decided to look upon this as a unique opportunity to approach our work
differently. If young people were with us from 12 noon until 5pm, they would have to
work alongside us and help every stage of the process - help unload the van,
prepare the room, sort the kitchen arrangements, eat lunch, plan the forthcoming
sessions etc.
The results were extremely interesting. As sessions progressed, we all began to
look at the whole experience differently - no longer were we running a coherently
planned two hour session. Instead, we began by chatting over sandwiches, talking
through events of the past week, making friends, sharing jokes - and setting up
workstations of activities around the room together – a video corner, photography
corner; piano keyboard, music laptop etc, a making table, a sofa downstairs for
chats and talking...
The relaxed nature of the process also allowed us to relax our planning, undertaking
this process together, empowering each individual further - so each session began
with a description of what was on offer today, followed by a summation of what 'jobs'
were left over from the week before … X – you have to finish your film, Y – you
have to work more on your poem if you want to turn it into a song, and so on … We
were spending time together as young people and artists, sharing skills, supporting
individuals, discovering new technology in a totally non-pressured way.
Perhaps we have unearthed an extremely useful working model, one that can
develop creative relationships to a high, intense degree. And looking at the concept
of a European style pedagogue, we wonder if that is what we were achieving in this
new style of work together?
Tim Fleming, Whitewood and Fleming
People with Passion draft report
Page 19 of 46
Sustainability – how can creativity be embedded in the
lives of looked after children and their carers?
Local project work has been highly valued by participants and practitioners; both
Worcestershire and Cumbria have indicated a desire for future work. The Cumbria
head of service has been approached by an arts agency through a regional
colleague, with opportunity to work with another arts practitioner, not known to her or
the local practitioners.
There is currently no means for them to identify how to commission and assess good
practice, nor is there a known list of skilled and trained artists to carry out the work.
She has no clear guidelines on which to base her judgement of good practice.
Learning from this project can build draft principles (see Figure 4).
In Bristol the service manager is retiring and the links built with the local authority
over several years will need to be re-established. The current lead has been part of
the Creative Friends Network for Myrtle during the project, and has contributed her
reflections to this report. No clear lead for the work within the authority has been
identified.
All arts agencies aimed to work to the highest standards of artistic quality and child
centred practice. They all acknowledged that that the work is emotionally demanding.
'..how do you hear the wells of unhappiness...' (Whitewood and Fleming)
'..and you support them tap a forgotten world of happiness... (Myrtle
Theatre Company)
'..you don’t do it all the time. It’s important to be refreshed and
inspired as artists...' (Whitewood and Fleming)
This raises issues of adequate support for all people engaged in working with
children and young people whose lives have been painful and troubled. Arts
practitioners may have a creative release through their work - but there is also need
for personal support and care, as well as a range of other creative work.
The relationship between artists and practitioners is emerging as an area for
partnership working, using a pedagogic approach to improve emotional and social
well-being. All practitioners identified that future work requires funding and
championing to provide collaborative reflexive practice.
'It is important that all artists engaged in this work can learn together.
We need to network with other artists to keep them secure.'
(Whitewood and Fleming).
The high quality practice demonstrated by these agencies can do much to support
the development of artists, commissioners and the children’s workforce - and a new
role of artist pedagogue.
Page 20 of 46
People with Passion draft report
Figure 4: Principles of good practice for contracting creative practice working
with looked after children and young people
Strategy and
resources
Choosing the right
practitioners
Support for
practitioners
Planning the detail
Making it happen
Plan work strategically to link with education, care, youth
support and health services as required
Provide adequate staffing and budgets
Involve children and young people in project planning as early
as possible
Work with carers and social workers as well as children and
young people.
Be clear about project aims
Provide adequate 'lead in time' to plan and set up the work
Identify overall local authority project coordinator with
management responsibility accountability and protected time
within children’s services
Engage creative practitioners with a proven track record of
working with looked after children and young people
Ensure all staff are cleared with Criminals Records Bureau
(enhanced certification) and work in accordance with Keeping
Arts Safe: protection of children and young people and
vulnerable adults involved in arts activities
Basic induction training for creative practitioners on local care
processes, protocols and procedures
Provide contact details of staff and carers to the creative
practitioners, including for those out of work hours
Ensure artists have support for their emotional well-being to
ensure safe practice
Plan and develop the work with practitioners, identifying what
creative outputs are needed
Consider the venue and any possible food required – high
sugar and food colouring affect behaviour
Clarify necessary permissions required, and where and how
information or outputs will be shown or used
Identify what support is available for practical arrangements
such as transport
Identify how individual children and young people will be
supported to take part in projects and how their possible
therapeutic needs can be addressed
Where possible build in accreditation of young people’s work
Ensure effective evaluation of child focused creative practice
from the beginning of the project
Ensure effective recruitment to the project through an effective
publicity strategy to carers and children and young people
Ensure participants' health information and specific safety
concerns are known and discussed with creative practitioners,
and a health and safety sheet completed for each child
People with Passion draft report
Page 21 of 46
Section 3:
Discussion of findings
1
It is clear from both elements of the work that children and young people looked
after in foster (approx 80% care population nationally) and residential care
(approx 8% of care population nationally) and those supported through local
authority short break care and family centres require additional support and
targeted programmes to build their confidence and understanding to become
reflective spectators, participants and creators. Learning through culture has an
important role for vulnerable children to boost their creativity, support their
personal development and improve attainment and aspirations. There is a need
to encourage and support children and young people who have little experience
and awareness of arts and creativity, to enable their uptake of cultural
opportunities. A summary of the key findings from the six local authorities is in
Appendix C of this report.
2
This time of change offers unique opportunities for arts and cultural services to
identify their role in improving outcomes for vulnerable children. Cultural
programmes are well placed to inspire engagement, encourage involvement,
provide flexible structures and clear boundaries, and celebrate individuality and
diversity of response. These are powerful tools to improve outcomes.
3
There is minimal understanding and some anxiety among care practitioners,
managers and commissioners about a range of issues, including how to engage
with cultural services, what is appropriate arts practice and quality of practitioner
and practice, recruitment and costs of artists and style and provision of support
required, and fear that arts practice may be quasi - therapy and is therefore
inappropriate for children who have been abused.
4
The term 'creative practitioner' has been used locally to describe many types of
creative practice, including cooking and gardening, as well as an approach to
practice in social work, education and nursing. Looked after children’s nurses
have shared their interests in arts, cooking and books as a means of getting to
know and build relationships with young people. This local work has sometimes
involved artists as part of the team, to provide the high quality skills and practice,
built on the interests shared by children, young people and their nurse. In other
areas, libraries and museums have been important partners.
5
The three creative arts projects have demonstrated high quality of practice and
different styles and approaches. They provide insight into creative practice
specific to the artists, participants, settings, scale and localities.
6
Local authorities, artists and creative arts practitioners have demonstrated that
vulnerable children and young people, especially those in care require additional
support to enable them to feel confident and supported to develop their creative
skills and talents, and have a voice in service planning and development. This is
an important area for local children’s services, and has been highlighted in the
Care Matters Implementation Plan, including Creative Participation within the
Healthy Care Programme. Work involves groups of children and young people
with a wide variety of emotional and social needs. This raises questions about
quality assuring creative and cultural work with vulnerable children and young
people to provide a safe and high standard of creative and cultural,
Page 22 of 46
People with Passion draft report
children/youth focused practice.
7
Creative practitioners have identified that foster carers and care workers must
encourage children and young people’s involvement, commitment, transport
arrangements and celebration of personal successes. Carers, including
residential workers, have no training and often little experience in the use of
creative arts practice, though some may have had an interest in art and drama in
their school life. The sharing of interests and development of skills as a means to
building relationships and improving emotional well-being is a key element of the
common third of pedagogy, and would inform an 'arts and creativity' style
pedagogic approach to foster care training.
8
Personal expression, fun, enjoyment, participation and relationships gained
through engagement in arts activities will have therapeutic benefits, but this is not
their aim. The skills of arts practitioners and their supervision are distinct and
different from CAMHS staff, though joint working and training will build local high
quality practice to promote emotional well-being and support the involvement of
children and carers.
9
Care Matters Implementation Plan’s gives clarity about the importance of arts
and creativity in looked after children’s lives in its discussion about health and
well-being. National developments in the children’s workforce, including
professional development for social work staff, foster carers training and
development, piloting of social pedagogy in residential care provide a timely
opportunity for creative and cultural services to support care practice
development. They can learn from existing effective practice, and consider
European models of social pedagogic practice, including the 'common third'
creative practice to build relationships and work in groups. Thomas Coram
Research Unit at the University of London is a lead international research
organisation for this model of practice.
10 Arts and cultural experiences are not generally included as an important part of
childhood, development and enjoyment – but rather as an add-on or expensive
luxury. The Youth Culture Trust has opportunity to provide a clear evidence base
of the importance of creativity and culture for all children, especially those who
need support to access it e.g. looked after children and disabled children. Joint
working with NCB should provide a heightened profile for arts, culture and
creativity within the broad children’s sector. The findings of this small-scale
project can be used as part of this learning foundation.
11 The local authority deep dive meetings and work with the three arts agencies has
identified effective practice and the barriers to achieving, outlined earlier in this
report. It is clear that the national profile provided by engagement with this work
has 'opened doors' for arts and cultural services to work with looked after
children services. A targeted three-year cross-government programme for
looked after children and their carers is required to build on this early learning
and provide a theory and practice evidence base, national profile, training and
mentoring opportunities, regional demonstration projects, and multi-agency
learning events to support the national roll out of the cultural offer for all children
and young people, including those who require additional support to ensure
uptake.
People with Passion draft report
Page 23 of 46
Section 4:
Recommendations
Profile and leadership
1
National leadership must be provided by Arts Council England to work across
government with Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), Department
for Children Schools and Families (DCSF), Dept for Communities and Local
Government (DCLG), Department of Health (DH) and stakeholder children’s
organisations including National Children’s Bureau (NCB). This must help build
the Youth Culture Trust as an agency to:



champion high quality creative and cultural provision
promote the five Every Child Matters outcomes
demonstrate the benefits of working with trained and supported artists in both
non school and school settings.
2
Arts and cultural sector need a higher profile within the local and regional
children and youth sectors, to be acknowledged as a partner at the table with
director’s of children’s services, health services and others, to ensure strategic
planning and resources. Arts Council England and Youth Culture Trust should
raise awareness and understanding across children’s services about creativity
and culture to enhance lives, encourage aspirations, fun and enjoyment – not just
as a diversion from crime and keeping young people off the streets.
3
Arts Council England should build national partnership working to deliver
sustainable, high quality arts and creativity programmes for looked after children
and young people to embed creativity in their lives.
4
NCB should provide leadership within the children’s sector to ensure uptake of
creative and cultural provision by all children, regardless of their support and
access needs.
5
Arts Council England and DCSF should provide a high profile national
conference to showcase the creative work and encourage awareness and
debate.
Cross-government working
6
A cultural offer for all children must include targeted support and programmes
for the more vulnerable – including looked after children - as a step towards
uptake of general provision and support for the gifted and talented.
7
Arts Council England should identify key partners across government, children’s
organisations and research bodies to take forward recommendations from this
report and develop a national action plan and funding strategy.
Research and evidence base
8
The Institute of Education, Arts Council England and National Children’s Bureau
should develop a European research bid to explore how arts and creative
practice improves outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.
Page 24 of 46
People with Passion draft report
9
Key national stakeholders should develop models to inform theory, practice and
commissioning of arts and creative practice.
10 Key national stakeholders should identify and develop models for evaluating
high quality practice in consultation with key academic bodies, drawing
together, as appropriate, learning from arts in health, including public health and
social pedagogic practice.
11 Models for evaluating effective practice should be informed through joint
working between children’s services and cultural agencies, building on learning
from Cultural Hubs, Arts Awards programmes, Renaissance and Heritage lottery
projects and Arts In Youth Justice.
12 Youth Culture Trust should ensure that learning gained from all cultural offer
pilots, as well as any additional targeted project work, should contribute to a
research programme about the role of creativity for vulnerable children and
young people – not as therapy but rather as encouraging discovery, friendships,
relationships, aspiration and enjoyment.
13 The cultural offer programme should inform and be informed by the Centre for
Excellence and Outcomes (CfEO) in children and young people’s services.
14 National principles of good practice should be developed.
15 Research should be carried out on how access to arts and creative activities
is mediated by carers own attitudes to the arts and creative opportunities.
Training and development of artists
16 Arts Council England should enable creative practitioners and artists to share
learning and inform practice development.
17 The Creativity and Cultural Skills Council should contribute to the Children’s
Workforce Network, developing the core skills of people who work with children
and young people. This should ensure that creative practitioners are
appropriately trained and recognised. High quality arts practice, would
contribute to the quality assurance required for creative practitioners.
18 Arts Council England, NCB, TCRU and DCSF should develop a role of artist
pedagogue within socially engaged arts practice for working with vulnerable
people, including looked after children, building on learning from European
practice in social pedagogy.
Training of care workers and health workers
19 Local delivery for looked after children and young people should be supported
through multi-agency training of carers and childcare staff through taster
sessions, access to cultural opportunities, accredited training courses and
continuing professional development days.
People with Passion draft report
Page 25 of 46
20 DH should consider creative methods of building and sustaining relationships as
a professional development opportunity for the children’s public health
nursing workforce, especially for looked after children’s nurses, health visitors
and primary mental health workers.
21 Government officers and regional arts partners should build the creative skills
of participation workers through focussed training programmes.
22 Arts Council England and the Youth Culture Trust should build partnership
working with the public health sector nationally and regionally, to ensure an
effective practice base for delivering key public health targets on obesity,
exercise and mental health and supporting access to outdoor spaces and care
for the environment.
23 Agencies tendering for 'social pedagogy pilots' in residential care should
identify how they are using creative skills such as art, music and outdoor
activities as a means to build relationships and what training they receive. A copy
of the main project report should be forwarded to National Centre for Excellence
in Residential Child Care at NCB for their perusal.
24 DCSF and Children’s Workforce Development Council should ensure that
creativity and culture are included within the skills development of social
workers and carers and other programmes for multi-agency working with
vulnerable children.
25 DCSF, CWDC and Children’s Workforce Network should identify how
awakening creativity and creative practice in the carer workforce is a means
of improving social worker, residential and foster carer practice.
Local implementation and quality assurance
26 Resources to be provided to support local implementation and development
of creative and cultural practice with vulnerable children and young people e.g.
briefing for corporate parents, including elected members, carer resource, and
case studies of effective practice based on information from this project.
27 Local directors of children’s services and assistant directors with responsibility for
children in care/looked after children should identify support and resources for
uptake of cultural opportunities, providing service links between cultural
services looked after education, health and care.
28 Arts Council England and Youth Culture Trust stakeholders should ensure
quality assurance of creative and cultural practice with children and young
people, especially those who are vulnerable.
29 Local children's services should include arts and creative opportunities in care
planning.
Page 26 of 46
People with Passion draft report
Access
30 There is a need for clear terminology and a shared understanding of language
between the sectors (e.g. see Glossary)
31 Arts Council England’s work with parents and families should include a greater
understanding of the wide range of family care that exists, to ensure that
foster carers are included and supported within their practice area. Learning from
this project and from Healthy Care Programme can be used to inform their
inclusion.
32 The review of national minimum standards for fostering and residential care
should identify access to high quality arts and creative practice within the revised
standards.
33 A jointly funded project between DCSF and Arts Council England should support
the implementation of the national template of Things to Do developed by
NCB for DCSF. This should be placed within the cultural offer pilots to identify
key issues for local authorities and regional and local partners.
34 NCB and Arts Council England should work with Council for Disabled Children
and ICAN to seek funding to develop a programme of work to ensure disabled
children and young people in short break care have the opportunity to
benefit from the cultural offer.
A social pedagogic approach
35 NCB and the Institute of Education should develop an accredited course for
foster carers and creative practitioners based on social pedagogic approaches
to creative practice.
People with Passion draft report
Page 27 of 46
Glossary
ACE
Arts Council England
Creative friends
DCLG
Each arts agency developed a small group of people who could
provide advice, information, or open doors, during the life of their
project
A term used in the Healthy Care Programme to encourage creative
participation methods to develop fun and inclusive engagement
and involvement in decision making
A term used within this document to identify practitioners of a
range of arts and creative activities including cooking and
gardening
A national offer of five hours of creative and cultural activities per
week for children and young people. To be piloted in ten local
authorities
Department for Communities and Local Government
DCMS
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
DCSF
Department for Children, Schools and Families
Deep dive
A term used by some government departments for in-depth
qualitative research/discussions with local authorities to help
identify factors for effective practice and obstacles for success that
need to be changed
Department of Health
Creative
participation
Creative
practitioners
Cultural offer
DH
Every Child
Matters - Five
Outcomes
Healthy Care
Programme
High quality
practice
ICAN
Looked after
children
Page 28 of 46
Be healthy; stay safe: enjoy and achieve; make a positive
contribution; and achieve economic well-being
A national programme developed by NCB, funded by DCSF to
promote the health and well-being of looked after children
A term used in this context by Arts Council England to encourage
best arts practice. This does not necessarily infer high quality
engagement with children and young people
ICAN is a national charity that works to support the development of
speech, language and communication skills in all children, with a
special focus on those who find this hard: children with speech,
language and communication needs.
Refers to children and young people who may be:
 accommodated under a voluntary agreement with their
parents consent, or their own consent if aged 16 or 17
 in care on a Care order or Interim Care Order under Section
31 of the Children Act 1989
 accommodated under section 21(2) © (i) of the Children Act
1989
 on an Emergency Protection Order under Section 44 of the
People with Passion draft report
Children Act 1989
NCB
National Children's Bureau
Reflective
practice
Reflection on practice, in the light of theory and of the practical
outcomes intended for the young people - seen as one means by
which balance can be achieved.
Acknowledges the person and their particular social life, providing
personal development and fulfilment, with an emphasis on
emotions and interpersonal responses. Through interactions,
practitioners and young people affect and change each other.
Reflexive
practice
Social
pedagogy
Things to do
'The theory of all the personal, social and moral education in a
given society, including the description of what has happened in
practice' (Karl Mager,1844)
Social pedagogy was described simply at the learning seminar as
'the point where care and education meet' – providing nurturance,
socialisation, upbringing, education in its widest sense and
supporting child development. A part of European social pedagogy
training is the 'common third' - creative practice and skills to help
build relationships between carers and children. Children gain
enjoyment, self-realisation and cultural inclusion. Its intention is not
therapy, although it will have therapeutic benefits. The work of the
pedagogue involves the whole person: head, hands and heart.
A national template for children's services to provide positive
activities for looked after children and young people
People with Passion draft report
Page 29 of 46
Appendix A: Deep dive interview sheet
NCB is pleased to have received funding from Arts Council England to identify how
the arts and creative opportunities can be provided and sustained in services to
looked after children and young people.
We are visiting your area and consulting with a group of people including social
workers and foster carers, youth workers commissioners of work and any arts
programme partners to find out about what works, what challenges, and what would
help you support creative work with looked after children and young people to:




build positive relationships with carers and other staff
engage and motivate for learning and future education, training and
employment
participate and contribute to service planning and development
develop emotional and physical well-being
We want to build on your expertise and experience to help us identify:
1. Key partners and routes for the engagement of looked after children and
young people in creative activities




Is the work develop strategically or ad hoc?
Who are the partners to develop the work?
Who identified funding and how?
Can we draw a flow chart of how a piece of work might be
designed/developed???
2. The range of skills required of creative practitioners in e.g., music,
drama and the visual arts, in engaging with looked after children.



What sort of training and experience do the artists, arts workers and agencies
have? E.g. professional artists, teacher, youth workers, pedagogues…
Can they define the skills required – could word storm this.
Anything that is a problem
3. The roles to be played by carers and other social care staff in supporting
children and young people in such projects, and in relating to the
creative practitioners.




Who might support an arts project?
How are carers and social care staff involved or included in creative practice?
How are carers etc briefed or trained for this?
Have there been any observations, concerns or opportunities from this
involvement
Page 30 of 46
People with Passion draft report
4. Opportunities and obstacles for arts and creative practitioners to work
with looked after children and young people



Who knows what opportunities are out there e.g. Arts Awards, local clubs and
activities, children’s centres, nurture groups, support for special interests
through targeted youth support using the arts and creativity as a means to
support looked after children and young people.
How are these communicated to children, young people and carers.
What are the blocks and gateways?
5. Local sustainability of the projects





Is the work one off or part of the wider arts and cultural strategy
Is work in the children and young people’s plan? And other plans?
Are there strategic levers to help sustain the work
How is work funded, and sustained
Local champions and advocates?
6. Effective evaluation of the work against the following criteria:




building positive relationships with carers and other staff
engaging and motivating for learning and future education, training and
employment
participating and contributing to service planning and development
developing emotional and physical well-being
Copies of any evaluation reports.
7. Any other comments

Help us in advising policy makers about how to embed arts and creativity in
the lives of looked after children and young people?
People with Passion draft report
Page 31 of 46
Appendix B: Creative memories journal
National Children’s Bureau - Creativity for looked after children and young
people
We want you to help us understand how reflecting on your creative practice and the work you
are doing with children, young people and staff develops through the life of the project, and
how this affects your work. This is a means to developing reflexive practice.
We know that it is often circumstances out of your control that affect the project work, and we
would like to know more about these. We want to improve the understanding among carers
and other staff of the value of creative work for young people, and help inform other artists
who want to undertake such work . Please think about your work in relation to:
 the roles to be played by carers and other social care staff in supporting children and
young people, and in their relationship with you and other creative practitioners
 how you build positive relationships with carers and other staff
 opportunities and obstacles to work with looked after children and young people
 the part played by strategic players, such as managers in the agencies with whom
you are in contact about the project
Please use this Creative Memories Journal sheet to help you identify your feelings at key
points, the opportunities, obstacles and change points during the course of the project you
have undertaken. We ask you to use the sheet to help you record your own feelings in
relation to the work, and to capture the information needed.
It would help us if you can complete this record at least weekly. We know this increases the
paper work for you and we appreciate your taking time to do it.
Thank you
Helen Chambers
Principal Officer - National Children’s Bureau
Creative Memories Journal
Project name………………………………………………………………………….
Completed by …………………………………………………………………………
Date…………………………………………………………………………………….
Page 32 of 46
People with Passion draft report
1. When you think back over the week, in relation to the project, how do you feel
about it? Please circle any of the following images that come near to representing
your experience?
2. How did you come to chose this image(s)?
3. What have been the high spots for you this week/today? What happened? How did
you feel?.
4. Have there been any low points? What happened? How did you feel?.
.
5. Have you decided to make any changes to how you work with the young people. If
so would you describe these?
People with Passion draft report
Page 33 of 46
6. Were the changes a result of the high spots or low spots – or for any other
reason?
7. Have you decided to make any changes in how you organise the project? If so,
would you say what these are and why you came to this decision
8. What do you hope will happen as a result.
9. How do you feel about next week/tomorrow
10. Why have you chosen that image?
11. Anything else you want to record about last week?
Thank you for completing this journal sheet.
Page 34 of 46
People with Passion draft report
Appendix C: Deep dive key findings - a summary
Area 1
Shire County
Area 2
Unitary
authority
Area 3
Urban
Area 4
Shire county
Area 5
Shire county
Area 6
Urban
Strategic Partnership
Healthy Care –
no arts
involvement
Healthy Care –
no arts
involvement
Healthy Care
No
No
New Healthy
Care being set
up.
Might include
cultural sector
No
New Healthy Care
partnership begun –
Arts sector to be
involved
Creative Partnerships
Multi Agency
Looked After
Partnership
No arts
involvement
No
Engagement with
agencies
Yes with local
arts agency.
Strategic
manager MLA
Head of
Cultural
Services
Music Advisor is
the only Arts
officer for the
authority
MLA and
Theatre Royal,
led by these
agencies.
LAC services
manager
believed it a
very neglected
area of work
Partnership with a
music agency and
NACRO to support
participation
Handstand
Theatre Co.
Arts Advisor
Strategic
Development
Officer Arts and
Young People
attended
Head of Arts
Education links to
key partners,
including
looked after
education and
participation teams
LAC nurses
YOF, Youth
Services, PCTs
Work with carers
commissioned by
NCB, supported
by training dept.
Willingness for
more – but no
budget.
Difficult to
recruit good
carers, many
children placed
out of area.
Care to Read
worker to
encourage
family learning.
Specialist arts
training agency
lost funding
2005 NCB and
children's services
provided a national
seminar for carers
and arts agencies.
'Pedagogue' in
children’s Centre
is an early years'
teacher.
DVD for schools
and teachers
about Young Run
Always involving
care leavers.
Sustainability
factors
Training of carers and
staff about arts and
creativity
None
People with Passion draft report
No
Page 35 of 46
Yes
Planned range of
targeted training
Leadership
Senior manager Leaving care
and care
Lead and Care
leavers
leaver
Education
coordinator of
LAC teams
and CAMHS
Senior Practitioner
for Participation
Principal
Safeguarding
Manager aiming
to make strategic
links for
participation
agenda
Head of Arts
Education
Arts Awards
No
No
Offered
through
Theatre Royal
No
No
Yes
Links to cultural
services
Previous
positive
experiences,
especially with
libraries
None – only rep
identified was
County Music
Advisor
Links to
literacy.
MAX card to
admit carers
and children
Highly successful
project with
MLA
Deep dive
provided
1stopportunity
Strategic planning
across children’s
services and
cultural services
Strategic plans and
links
No
Difficult
Identified need
of including in
CYP Strategic
Plan
Through
Participation
strategy
No
Yes through
strategic planning
and links
Funding
Short term
project funding
e.g. Food
Standards
Association
Through
providing
participation of
children and
young people
Paul Hamlyn
for Care to
Read, then
Children’s
Services
Heritage Lottery.
Grant applications
None identified
Various including
Waterstones, PCTs
and Youth
Opportunities Fund
Cultural offer
application intended
Virtual school heads
or extended schools
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes in Primary
years – nothing
demonstrated
None identified
No
Not so far
Interest from
extended schools
but no development
Page 36 of 46
People with Passion draft report
Evaluations
Care to Cook
and
Breakdance
Projects
No
Care to Read
worker
Robust evaluation
of creative arts
project with
Heritage Services
No though both
DVDs are being
used as training
materials.
Any opportunities
Partnership
working
between
Cultural
services and
Children’s
Services
following deep
dive meeting
Music Advisor as
only arts
employee for the
authority
suggested Sing
Up for care
leavers and
carers
Large rural county
makes provision
difficult –
importance of IT
communication.
Ongoing
developments
MediaBox – multimedia project
Healthy Care
Programme
development and
this project have
increased
awareness of
Creative
Participation
Obstacles/local
challenges
Time and
funding
Concerns about
photographs,
DVD and IT in
public domain
Leadership
Resources
Time
No obvious arts
partners
National climate
does not
encourage arts
More
information on
links with
emotional wellbeing.
Arts and
culture event
planned for
summer as
part of carer
recruitment
Transport
Helix Arts now
ended
Many older
carers are
wary of arts
activities don’t see the
point.
Arts not part of
the carers’
culture.
Poor links
between
sectors.
Large rural county.
Transport
Mainstream
activities need to
understand the
needs of looked
after children.
Resource to
support children’s
engagement
Need to educate
arts sector about
priorities and
needs of
children’s
services
People with Passion draft report
Page 37 of 46
Well evaluated work
using arts to build
self esteem and
confidence with the
20% of looked after
young people in
residential care
Many.
Development of
Gallery 37 work
with young parents
supported by Youth
Music Children’s
Services and
Teenage
Pregnancy
Large population of
looked after
children with
'isolated villages' for
cultural provision.
Appendix D: Deep dive: children and young people’s
plans
Area 1
The Draft Children and Young People’s Plan 2008-2011 identifies the need to
increase access to positive activities for all children and young people including
targeted activities for vulnerable groups.
Care2Cook
Finding the right people to work with vulnerable children and young people is difficult.
For creative activities this means finding people with the right technical and creative
skills and the ability to engage with children who may be difficult to develop
relationships with, lack confidence, and have ups and downs during a project. Getting
children and young people to get involved and stick with a project can also be a
challenge as they may not, at first, be able to see what it can offer them.
A local authority has been running a Care2Cook? group for young care leavers and
those soon to be care leavers. An early problem was finding a cook to lead the
course, as they needed someone who could enthuse young people, as well as share
knowledge and develop skills. They found it much more difficult to find the right
person than they had thought and were lucky to find someone who was passionate
about healthy eating and young people learning to cook.
Successful completion of the eight-week course leads to young people gaining a
recognised qualification. One young person had joined the course after a foster
carer’s prompting that it would help to make new friends and be something
interesting to do – the young person was very pleased to have made several new
friends and to have gained a qualification – a first for this young person.
Area 2:
The Children and Young People’s Plan 2006 has identified a need for more arts
and media activities after school for all children and a need to find out more about the
leisure needs of looked after children.
Carer training
The local children’s services and foster carers have worked with Myrtle Theatre
Company to identify the obstacles and opportunities they find in supporting the
mental health and emotional well-being of the children in their care. The findings
were turned into a theatrical presentation, which the foster carers performed at
Young Minds regional and national CAMHS conferences.
Other work with the same theatre company has included an event for stakeholders,
focusing on the development of a Care Pledge for looked after children. This was
funded by Creative Partnerships with the National Children’s Bureau as part of this
project. It included training sessions for foster carers to help them understand the
value of creative engagement and how this may contribute to improved emotional
and physical well-being for the children in their care. Foster carers identified that
Page 38 of 46
People with Passion draft report
interactive training methods were their preferred model of training, and have gone on
to use some of the drama techniques gained, in delivering local health and well-being
training.
Area 3:
Children and Young People’s Plan 2006-2009:
Enjoy and achieve outcome:
What do we mean by enjoy and achieve?
 Children and young people should be able to enjoy their leisure time, and
especially the most vulnerable must be helped to use leisure facilities and
opportunities
 Children and young people will develop skills and engage in opportunities which
will foster creative learning (pp28 – part of a list)
How will we measure this outcome?
 Number of opportunities offered to engage in sport, art, drama and other leisure
activities.
Care to Read
Care to Read is a literacy development project aimed at looked after children of all
ages (0 to 18 years). It began in 2003 with two years funding from the Paul Hamlyn
Foundation and has since received mainstream funding from the city council (social
services). A unique partnership between the Care to Read Project, libraries, social
services and Family Learning has developed.
The objectives of the project are to:
 provide better access to books for looked after children
 improve the reading ability of looked after children
 encourage the enjoyment of books amongst looked after children
 raise the expectations of carers to help support the literacy and learning of children
in their care.
The project provides a range of activities and opportunities to support looked after
children’s reading. It also recognises the importance of carers' roles in promoting
literacy. A course on play and language for early years settings was run for foster
carers and the success of this course led to the development of a longer family
literacy course for foster carers.
Although attended by small numbers, the evaluation by foster carers has highlighted
their own improved literacy and numeracy skills and increased ability to help children
and young people with homework. Some carers are helping out at their children's
schools and carers have gained an accredited qualification - for many, this is a first.
All carers thought their increased knowledge, skill and confidence had an impact on
the learning and achievement of the children they care for. The courses were
enjoyable too and used creative ideas for exploring literacy and numeracy - for
example making a stained glass window at Christmas was also a way of learning
about shapes, areas, perimeters and measurement.
People with Passion draft report
Page 39 of 46
Area 4
Children and Young People’s Plan: mentions arts activities twice:
2.
The six strategic themes
2.1
All children achieving their potential
We want all children and young people to achieve their potential in whatever form it
takes. We have high standards in public examination results. We recognise that
some children and young people may fulfil their potential through music, art, drama,
vocational training, sport, volunteering etc, and that some children and young
people will require extra support to achieve their full potential.
6.5
Achieve economic well-being
The social development of care leavers has been addressed through a wide variety
of innovative activities including art and drama projects and cultural exchanges to
India. This work will be embedded and extended as part of a strategic approach to
developing care leaver life chances.
Embedding creative activities in looked after children’s services
A key part of the role of the children and young people's participation officer is the
development of opportunities for arts and creative activities for looked after children
and young people. This has resulted in the development of networks and contacts
across this large rural county. It has identified organisations within the voluntary and
community sector that can provide creative activities for looked after children, but that
might not previously have considered them as a group to work with. It also allows
time to be spent exploring values and making sure organisations have the right skills
to engage vulnerable young people who may have difficulties.
The participation officer keeps in touch with organisations and helps them to plan
projects and deal with difficulties as they arise. Consequently, local organisations
develop their capacity to work with looked after children and young people.
This has enabled the development of pragmatic partnerships. For example, a music
agency has been working with the looked after children's service to provide
residential music projects for young care leavers. Express Yourself has been running
for two years and has been positively evaluated. A key feature of the project is
individual reviews of each young person’s development during the project written by
the facilitators. These pick up issues such as making friends, observing boundaries
and getting on with others, as well as musical and technical skills development.
A service level agreement is now in place to provide some security for the music
agency, to ensure continuity of staffing and long term planning for the project. Other
spin-offs of the partnership have been that a residential children’s home has joined a
project run by the agency, to provide music residencies in youth provision in the
county. A residency now runs in the children’s home and looked after children are
being introduced to mainstream youth activities through their involvement in the
project.
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Area 5
Children and Young People’s Plan 2006-2009: No mention of arts or creative
activities but does mention participation in service development, increasing the
availability of activities for young people and opportunities for getting involved in
accredited activities and improving access to and participation in out of school
activities for looked after children.
One of the Joint Area Review (2006) recommendations:
Make better use of the skills and capacity of the voluntary, community and faith
organisations in improving outcomes for children and young people.
We've got a right to....DVD
This local authority made a DVD about children’s rights with a group of looked after
children and young people –We’ve got a right to.... The project required a lot of
preparation and planning by the workers involved – far more than they had originally
thought. It was also hard to sustain the children and young people’s interest and
commitment at times, especially when there was not much to report – such as ‘we
still can't find the right venue’. This sometimes led to the group worrying that the
project would fail.
Time spent finding the right arts organisation to work with was vital. The organisation
chosen had significant experience of working with vulnerable young people and was
quickly able to capture the group’s interest and get the project moving. They were
also confident about working with issues such as low literacy levels and found ways
of working with support workers to get the young people reading and writing and
feeling good about it – young people who said they were no good at writing wrote the
production schedules and kept the group on target!
Area 6
The city's strategy for children, young people and the arts aims to:
 Increase access for children and young people to the arts
 Raise the quality of arts activities for children and young people
 Recognise the achievements of children and young people in the arts
 Enable children and young people to progress in their engagement with the arts,
developing their skills and interest.
The Children and Young People’s Plan 2008-2011 identified children’s social
literacy (the ability to get along with people) as one of its six priority areas but does
not specifically mention arts or creative activities other than as part of universal
provision.
A children and young people’s arts strategy
It has a well-established programme of arts and creative activities specifically for
looked after children and young people. As well as encouraging and supporting them
to get involved in arts activities for all children:
 foster carers are trained in using the arts
 'arts boxes' are provided for residential units with a nominated arts link person and
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a laptop to keep in touch, materials and equipment, plus a practice session with
materials for all staff. Future work will seek to develop staff’s use of the arts
 a project is using the arts to build self esteem and confidence with looked after
young people in residential units
 a multi-agency consultation event for looked after children offered a mix of
activities to try for all age groups, as well as opportunities for information and
advice and for children to give feedback.
 a week-long event was held with arts activities, music and dance, outdoor pursuits
and sports. Also a scheme gives looked after children the chance to bid for up to
£300 to fund activities tailored to their interests, drawing on a challenge fund set
up by the local authority. Other looked after children are involved in vetting the
bids, which have included dance lessons, a mountain bike and art materials.
 arts awards are being successfully achieved by looked after young people. In
some cases young people who have disengaged from education have been able
to gain an arts award through attendance at pupil referral units.
Also, outside organisations can bid for funds to manage activities for looked after
children. For example, the regional art centre has provided Saturday performing arts
activities for young children that culminate in a performance for carers, or foster
parents. The Dance Exchange rewards good attendance at Key Stages 3 and 4 with
workshops at the city's theatre led by dance teachers.
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Appendix E: Overview of three arts organisations
Myrtle Theatre Company
Myrtle Theatre Company has built a national reputation for innovative and
challenging theatre, delivering professional theatre productions, interactive
workshops and participatory performances, providing artistic excellence and learning
opportunities of the highest quality.
The Company has a specialism of working with the care system, delivering a number
of related projects in recent years. These include
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Jump Together – to facilitate multi-agency partnership work in delivering the
National Healthy Care programme.
A Role to Play - consultation with children and young people in care on the
Green Paper, Care Matters.
Help! – consultation and facilitation of performance with foster carers at
regional and national CAMHS conferences.
Interactive participatory workshop with the South West Regional Children
Looked After Nurses Group
Performance and participatory workshop for the South West Children’s board
We work with agencies such as National Children’s Bureau, Government Office for
the South West, Young Minds, CAMHS, and Children and Young People’s Services.
Pablo Productions
Pablo Productions Ltd has been delivering high quality creative projects with
communities for over twenty years. They work with a range of partners including local
authorities, Creative Partnerships, Arts Council England and national charities. They
are committed to working with young people within the Every Child Matters
framework and to developing creative education opportunities for young people to
take ownership and responsibility for their learning experiences.
Whitewood and Fleming
Whitewood & Fleming was established in 1985 by artists Elaine Whitewood and Tim
Fleming. It is a Regularly Funded Organisation of Arts Council England, North West.
Our process is a multi-disciplinary approach that listens, looks, researches and
responds. We then invent and deliver a tailor-made project. In most cases there is
live performance of the end result, but not always. Sometimes we make films and
record music; or make mosaics and wall hangings. And we have been known to build
playgrounds and plant trees. Whitewood & Fleming was based in West Yorkshire but
we have been working as well in Cumbria for the past seven years and are now
based in the Rusland Valley.
Artistic Directors Tim and Elaine manage and direct the company and draw from a
pool of hand picked freelance artists who work regularly on projects.
Working with looked after children is immensely important to us. It is the cornerstone
of our work and has been since the company began. We have over twenty-five years
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pioneering experience in this field. The approach is multi-disciplinary; but our main
medium is music.
We have worked in partnership with Social Services, Children’s Services, Foster
Carers, LACE teams, NCH Action for Children, Barnardo’s, the Foster Care
Associates. We are especially proud of our relationship with Calderdale Social
Services, which ran from 1997 to 2006. CSS now allocates funds specifically for
music and other creative arts work with looked after children.
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People with Passion draft report
If you have any comments on this report, please send them to:
Helen Chambers
Principal Officer
National Children's Bureau
Wakley Street
London
EC1V 7QE
Telephone/Fax:
email:
0117 317 9606
HChambers@ncb.org.uk
Further copies of this report can be obtained from:
Emma Slawinski
Arts Council England
14 Great Peter Street
London
SW1P 3NQ
Telephone:
email:
May 2008
020 7973 5318
Emma.Slawinski@artscouncil.org.uk