CreativeMentors – Page 2 – Southampton Cultural Education Partnership

Big Dreams and Big Impacts at the SCEP Workshop

More than 30 representatives of Southampton’s arts, education, health and police sectors took part in the SCEP (Southampton Cultural Education Partnership) workshop at the John Hansard Gallery on 30 January 2023 to look at how arts and culture could improve the lives of children and young people in the city.

Photographs: Louise Coysh

At the forefront of everyone’s minds was young people; what they want from arts and culture and how to ensure they get it.
SCEP workshop participant

Participants undertook various activities investigating the needs and aspirations of local children and young people before taking part in a group Big Dream Big Impact workshop. The groups were given a hypothetic scenario where an anonymous donor had given £2 million to improve the lives of children and young people using arts and culture, and then discussed ideas to use the money which could be feasibly implemented in the city if funding was available. These included:

A fleet of community arts and education buses which could visit individual communities with community-led activities and then create a centralised festival site showcasing what had been produced in each area.
Increasing the opening hours of existing spaces like libraries to run arts activities and connecting the city with bus passes for every young person.
A social enterprise initiative focused on youth led events and activities with free transport for young people.
‘You Belong Here’ – an arts award hub with go-and-see transport and neighbourhood road shows.
An adolescent crisis lounge with a hub-and-spoke support system.

Key elements were then discussed to see which could be taken forward in the work of the SCEP over the next year including transport and building on past projects, utilising and revitalising community assets, arts linked with additional provision such as health, a focus on places and neighbourhoods and neutral spaces for young people. Some young people attended the event and threading through all the discussion was the need to give young people the power to direct and drive future activity.

I was reminded all over again of the power of a creative act to inspire people to work together and come up with amazing new ideas.
SCEP workshop participant

If you want to learn more about SCEP, become a member, hear about future events, or to join our mailing list, please email us

‘Rationalising’ your goals

Creative Mentor Jilly Evans brings us the next instalment of our Creative Mentors’ training blog.

Jilly Evans, visual artist, SCEP Creative Mentor

Anna and Matt were unlucky enough to get COVID, so Craig stepped in and taught us all about safeguarding, as always there is so much to learn. Talking about ‘disclosures’ reminded me of knitting/stitching workshops I’d run and how conversation seems to flow more easily when we’re all engaged in creative activity. Whilst all the safeguarding training is vital, I was glad to be reminded that our role is to work on the development of the child.

Craig gave us an example of how a disclosure might happen by playing the part of a young person whose Dad, Mr Pineapple, was clearly not a very nice individual. We had to note down key points from the disclosure, as well as listening. I realised that I also need to make notes to ensure I capture all the relevant information as it’s crucial to have all the facts.

Craig gave us a top tip, some confidential documents such as a contact information form cannot be taken home, they need to be kept securely in a locked container, but your car can be a locked container, who knew!

The following week Matt and Anna, recovered from COVID, taught us all about coaching, goal setting and active listening. We started the session by sitting, closing our eyes and grounding ourselves in the space. It felt good to sit in the space and become present, to forget about the mad dash that I find myself in every weekday morning to get to work/the studio/ Mentor training anywhere near on time.

We had all been asked to think about a goal or two to share with the group, these included a novel to be written, paintings to be created and studio spaces to be ‘rationalised’ (a fancy word for having a clear out – that was one of mine). In the afternoon we all paired up. Amy and I took turns in being the active listener/coach and the person being coached, swapping roles every few minutes when the timer went off. It felt like we were really getting somewhere and maybe, just maybe my studio may be ‘rationalised’ next year!

Jilly Evans

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).

Creating Confidence

The next in our series of Creative Mentor training blogs comes from Aidan, Studio Manager at Hightown Studios.

Aidan, Studio Manager at Hightown Studio, SCEP Creative Mentor

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

It’s good to talk

Our six Creative Mentors have been busy training. Visual artist Ellen Gillett describes the initial session in the first of our Mentors’ blog posts.

Ellen Gillet, visual artist, SCEP Creative Mentor — Ellen Gillett, visual artist, SCEP Creative Mentor

It is rare, outside of therapy; intimate conversations with friends; or job interviews, that we get a chance to talk about ourselves and our creative practice. We are conditioned to believe that as adults it is rude or self-centered to spend too much time talking about oneself.

The first session of Creative Mentor training was, therefore, a rare pleasure in that we were afforded the opportunity to speak about ourselves, our creative practice and what motivates and drives us, in a friendly and supportive environment. This was truly beneficial as it allowed us to stop and reflect on why we do what we do, and where it might all be heading.

In the same manner, we got to hear exciting stories, insights and personal observations from other creatives, across a broad range of creative disciplines. This was enriching due to the information and stories they shared but also really encouraging as this group of people is the team that we will be collaborating with for the next six months in order to deliver this exciting mentorship project.

In that first week we also were introduced to some activity-based techniques and icebreakers for engaging groups of mentees. We began to learn how we might use tools like these to encourage participation, learn about our mentees and break down boundaries between us and a group and between the participants themselves.

The second week built on what we had learnt in the first, expanding what we know about each other’s motivations to join the project. The main focus for the week’s session was learning about the landscape of Southampton and the surrounding area, in terms of provision and services for young people, arts organizations that operate in the area, and how all of these initiatives link and join up. We also delved into different types of organisational structures, how they might be funded and considerations for creatives working within these networks: ideas such as boundary setting, copyright and intellectual property considerations, and the concept of safeguarding.

Overall, the enthusiasm and creativity of those involved with this project; the forward-thinking, inclusive, and continually reflective teaching style; and the exciting hints about what’s in store has made me feel truly enthused about being part of this project and look forward to our next session.

Ellen Gillett

SCEP EXPO in Pictures

Cultural practitioners and organisations alongside educators, health workers and youth agencies came together at the John Hansard Gallery on 21 November 2022 for the Southampton Cultural Education Partnership (SCEP) EXPO.

Photographs: Nosa Malcolm

This well-attended event, the first in-person event for over two years, was held to showcase the diverse, cultural education offer of SCEP member organisations available for children and young people across Southampton. It included networking opportunities, a gallery tour, a stunning vocal performance by a student from Redbridge Community School. Sam Cairns, SCEP Transition Manager and Lucy Marder, Artswork presented how Arts Awards and Artsmark can enhance learning for children and different settings.

Louise Coysh, SCEP Interim Lead and Associate Director of Arts and Culture, University of Southampton, said, “The SCEP’s power is connecting people. It was amazing to have our growing community back together again, joined by our Creative Mentors and Cultural Connectors, to share the city’s exciting cultural offers and ambitions for children and young people.”

If you want to learn more about SCEP, become a member, hear about future events, or to join our mailing list, please email us