How the arts care for care-experienced young people

The programme involves a consortium of major arts organisations and care services across Derbyshire, who provide looked after children, care-leavers and their families with a chance to experience live performances, films, to participate in a range of creative opportunities and to help build pathways into careers.

This research set out to prove how the arts have a significant and positive impact on those young people with care-experienced backgrounds.

What we learned from this research is that the arts do not just exist as a form of entertainment; they can often alter the life-chances to those care-experienced young people, and in turn, help to close the social mobility gap between young people who have opportunities to do well in life, and those who do not, (due to circumstances out of their control).

Regardless of a young person’s childhood experiences, we know that the Arts, be that dance, theatre or music, provide young people with a range of life skills that are felt long into adult-hood. But what of those young people whose early life may have not been so easy? What can the Arts offer to young people who have navigated the care-system? How does engaging  in creative opportunities equip these young people with imperative life skills?

The research carried out by Prof. Alex Nunn showed that team building, increased confidence and communication skills, were just some of the outcomes felt by those young people in the Plus One scheme.

More than that, the research also showed that skills gained through artistic engagement could be felt out in the wider world, from empathy and understanding towards each other to social cohesion in the communities where these young people live and the communities these young people represent.

Some of the care-experienced young people who have been involved in Derby Theatre’s Plus One scheme reported that one of the major positive outcomes was the fact that they as a cohort of young people who had been through the care system, were over time, able to use their newly acquired artistic skills to challenge the care sector to do better and to bring about change for those young people who are part of this system.

There is no better way for these young participants of Plus One to have their voice heard, than to be heard through performance. And that’s why the Culture Cares Conference is returning to Derby Theatre (after a successful launch in 2018).

Taking place on Tuesday 16th November, this is Derby Theatre’s second conference bringing the cultural and care sectors together for insightful and lively conversations, presentations and workshops.

For this year’s conference we have worked with some of the partners of the Esmée Fairbairn’s Young People Leaving Care funding stream, to help inform and shape the conference; a radical investment programme with the aim of challenging and changing injustice and structural inequality for care leavers.

Keynote speakers include:

Darren Henley- Chief Executive of Arts Council England

Ashley John-Baptiste – Acclaimed Broadcaster and presenter

Sophie Willan- BAFTA award winning, Writer, Actor and Producer, (Alma’s Not Normal BBC 2)

Culture Cares can be attended in person or online and more can be found here: https://www.derbytheatre.co.uk/culture-cares-conference-2021

Caroline Barth, Creative Learning Director at Derby Theatre