The next in our series of Creative Mentor training blogs comes from Aidan, Studio Manager at Hightown Studios.
The Creative Mentorship Programme is a six month project, led by Jodie Sadler, Anna Carr, Matt Salvage and Craig Lockwood. First of all, I would like to say that all the leaders of the programme are incredible. They’re passionate, kind, and they have a vast wealth of knowledge between them that they share with enthusiasm and care. I wanted to thank them for their hard work, before writing about the programme so far.
There have now been four creative mentor sessions and my impressions are that it’s going to be an incredibly useful and special programme going forward. Our first session was mostly spent meeting each other and breaking the ice, but also learning a little bit about warm-up games and methods of leading group activities to calm and/or motivate the room. We then talked about and shared an object related to our practices, which was refreshing, especially to hear about the wide array of art forms and how special they are to every individual in the room. As we made our way around the circle, I learned about “rebellious” crafts, graphic design, fine art, poetry, photography, and even a little about wrestling. I’ve found every week that the room is absolutely buzzing with passion and drive for the creative arts.
The second session consisted of an introduction to the youth/arts sectors, run by Matt. It was very useful to learn about the different sectors, and where different companies fell. We talked at length about third sector youth agencies and how they can be funded. It was all-in-all a really interesting day.
The third session covered practice sharing, where each participant shared a ten minute workshop related to their practice. As we did that, Craig portrayed a young person with a different potential behavioural need for each workshop. This was a great exercise in how to deal with adverse behaviour and the best ways to nurture a young person’s learning/enjoyment while navigating more complex needs. We later learned about reality therapy and the idea of the real, perceived, and quality world. All very interesting topics and so useful to learn about.
The fourth session was spent learning about Trauma Informed Practice. There was so much covered about the idea of Trauma Informed Practice, that I had to ruminate for a while after the session. There was so much fascinating and vital information that I needed extra time to research it for myself. In the afternoon we performed “part 2” of behavioural needs learning, by doing various roleplays of an initial session with a young person and a referrer.
Overall, the sessions have been so helpful in my own learning, and for my confidence in myself as a creative mentor in the near future. I look upon the next few months with a sense of excitement and anticipation. This has been a fantastic opportunity thus far.
Aidan
The Southampton Cultural Education Partnership’s (SCEP) objective is to develop a cohort of Creative Mentors as local role models in Southampton, who will work directly with and inspire Children and Young People, including those from at risk, marginalised backgrounds or NEET (not in employment education or training).
The SCEP works to nurture creative and cultural education for all children and young people in the City. We are a consortium of organisations working together, in partnership with Artswork.
The SCEP’s Better Lives Through Culture Programme (BLTC) is part of a large-scale investment of over £130K by Artswork to support an ambitious two-year programme set to directly benefit hundreds of children and young people across the city and focuses specifically on engaging young people at risk of exclusion.
Creative Mentors, part of BLTC, is a paid training opportunity open to early career creatives in Southampton to develop mentoring skills and provide 1-2-1 support to young people aged 11 – 18 years. A dynamic cohort of practitioners, from a diverse range of artforms have been recruited and will be trained by SoCo Music Project to become Creative Mentors, developing their mentoring skills, knowledge and experience. Throughout the programme they will be supported to mentor a Southampton-based young person (mentee) to achieve their goals.
In partnership with Artswork
