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Using the arts to change young lives for the better can be achieved through partnerships between the creative industries, education and youth services, writes Amy Eastwood.

School pupils with work they created in collaboration with an artist in residence
The Big Fish – a site-specific sculpture created by local Dorset schools

A few weeks ago a colleague told me about a young person who had recently taken part in a theatre workshop. This particular young person had faced a multitude of complicated, demanding problems throughout his life and was on the brink of despair. His confidence had been undermined to such an extent that he was unsure of taking part in the workshop itself and almost walked out on the whole experience. Luckily, he remained in the workshop and participated to the full. A few weeks later he sent the following email:

“I just wanted to say thank you, you don’t know how much it means what you said to my Nan and my Mum they were so proud of me and I don’t really know why. But I really wanted to say thanks because I think you’ve saved my life. You have given me the focus and the inspiration to get back in and change my life.”

This inspiring testimony is a pertinent reminder of why we work in the arts and, at a fundamental level, how arts participation clearly helps people. Somewhere embedded beneath the piles of paperwork and the mass of emails is the reason I believe many choose to pursue a career in the arts. The arts can enhance, direct and – clichéd as it may sound – change lives. The arts are a particularly significant vehicle for young people and can tangibly help them to reach life decisions and vent frustrations, as well as build confidence and release untapped skills.

A creative future

The Aimhigher programme is a national government initiative that works with young people throughout Britain to widen participation in higher education by raising the aspirations and developing the abilities of young people from under-represented groups. In the LIFE (Learning is for Everyone) area, which covers Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset and South Somerset, we work with partners specifically to raise the artistic aspirations of young people through the creative industries strand.

We engage schools, community groups and youth centres in a variety of projects to encourage young people to progress into higher education and, ultimately, to pursue the creative industries as a career. Working alongside six key partners (The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, Bournemouth University, The Bournemouth and Poole College, Weymouth College, Yeovil College and Activate, the theatre and dance development agency for Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole), we deliver myriad projects reflecting the range of opportunities available in the creative industries.

Through the Aimhigher programme we work with young people usually aged between 12 and 19 years old, and have overwhelming evidence of the lasting affect that artistic projects have had on the outlook of the young people we engage. Feedback from young people such as “When I first came I didn’t have much confidence and was quite shy but now I’m much more confident,” to testimonies such “You’ve saved my life,” confirm that engaging in the arts evidently has an undeniable positive impact on the lives of young people.

Creative industries in action

The work of the partnership includes projects in media, visual art, community arts, design, performing arts, literacy and enterprise. The majority of the work undertaken is with young people in mainstream education. However, projects are also delivered with young people excluded from the education system because of behavioural or emotional difficulties, including projects with young offenders’ institutes.

The partnership believes in the power of the arts in allowing young people to explore their options in terms of further and higher education, as well as allowing an expressive route to explore perhaps dormant anxieties. In addition, although the focus of all Aimhigher projects is always education, inevitably the projects undertaken also address issues pertinent to teens. Topics chosen by the young people for exploration often include, for example, teenage pregnancy or bullying, in addition to topics linked to the curriculum.

Some examples include a recent short-term project led by Weymouth College involving 120 young people from local schools participating in workshops to create clay and aluminium scales for a five-metre-long steel fish. This sculpture is a permanent reminder to young people of their achievement. Other visual arts projects include a long-term artist in residence scheme run in collaboration with The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, where an undergraduate student develops a themed artistic project (such as photography or fine art) to complement the curriculum.

Performing arts projects include ‘Performing Pathways’, a project devised by partners Activate, where professional theatre and dance practitioners tour schools with an innovative workshop. The Bournemouth and Poole College runs a project where students are invited to see theatre performances at the college and take part in follow-up practical workshops. Young people also get the chance to work alongside professionals at Bournemouth Media School (part of Bournemouth University), to develop and shoot their own films, as well as work with industry standard machines at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth to create their own CD covers to contribute to their Art GCSE module in Design.

Conclusions

It is easy, as practitioners involved in the arts on an everyday basis, occasionally to forget the potential life-changing impact that arts practice can have on a young person. Sometimes we also naively assume that all young people have equal access to the arts. This is patently not the case. Aimhigher attempts to give as many under-represented young people as possible the opportunity to experience the arts, whatever their background. It is vital that the arts continue to engage with young people through initiatives such as Aimhigher. Then perhaps we can give many more young people the “focus and the inspiration to get back in and change my life”.

Amy Eastwood is Creative Industries Co-ordinator for Aimhigher LIFE area partnership, based at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth.
t: 01202 363201;
e: aeastwood@aib.ac.uk;
w: http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/life

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