Curious Project 6
An experimental testing ground for creative involvement of young people in place & space.
HomeInformation
Overview
This website has been created to ensure young people are engaged in the process of regeneration and renewal. It advocates for creativity as a tool to do this leading to meaningful engagement.
The website aims to do the following:
Connect - Help you to network with partners across different disciplines, creating new collaborations. Help you to find the right creative practitioners to enhance your project from a database of approved practitioners.
Inspire - Build a body of case studies to inspire creative approaches and learn from other activity across Pennine Lancashire and beyond, including developing a toolkit of approaches to help develop projects.
Resource - Signpost to funding streams as they become available.
Advocate - Help share the good practice you are developing and delivering and use this to influence at a strategic level, unlocking resource & embedding processes through policy.
Please make sure you register your details so you can have greater access to information on this site, be sent e-mail updates of new case studies funding and project opportunities. We also want to encourage your thoughts and ideas to make this website better and as useful a tool for you as possible.
Background
Since July 2008, a partnership, led by Curious Minds and included Regenerate Pennine Lancashire (formally Elevate), Lancashire County Council & Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council have approached the theme of creative engagement of young people through a phased approach.
‘Creative Engagement’ is the use of imaginative and innovative techniques to involve the community in the decision making process. Creative Engagement has a strong foundation in the arts but also involves architecture, ecology, design, community development, heritage, planning and regeneration.
PHASE I
In October 2008 a research & scoping report was completed by youth engagement specialist Paul Hartley to explore; How do young people become ‘ambassadors’ for their neighbourhoods and how can their commitment and understanding be best utilized to influence the future of Pennine Lancashire? We identified examples of good practice across the sub region of Pennine Lancashire and also across the country, brought together as a series of case studies. Conversations with over50 different professionals engaging with young people were carried out. These included youth workers, teachers, planning officers, artists and neighbourhood managers. Groups of young people were also engaged to find out about their experiences. A series of recommendations were produced which included:
- The development of a stronger network of professionals, sharing & learning from good practice and developing stronger partnerships.
- The need to advocate for creative & meaningful engagement of young people in local regeneration processes.
- The need to have strategic influence on the allocation of resources for young peoples engagement.
All these were aimed at a more sustainable approach to engaging young people.
PHASE II
The report was launched to an audience of 56 delegates. These included professionals engaged during the research phase as well as regional participants and more strategic partners, for example, Living Places. A series of consultation sessions were held in key areas of young people’s engagement; these included employment, cohesion, working with artists, youth led approaches, working in informal & formal settings. The project manager then continued to meet with 17 key professionals and consulted 96 young people, to further develop the following ideas in response to the recommendations:
- A framework for creative youth engagement, which will take the form of a web based toolkit; case study catalogue and networking tool launched in April 2010.
- A strategic statement/policy to encourage and embed good practice with strategic partners.
- A Pennine Lancashire young peoples group to develop a pathway for young people to engage at a Pennine Lancashire level on strategic programmes and avenues of influence.
PHASE III
We are currently working towards the submission of a substantial funding proposal to help to deliver sustainable practice, supporting projects on the ground and to advocate on behalf of partners the excellent work across Pennine Lancashire. This website is the first step in embedding this practice.
Curious Minds
Curious Minds has grown out of the experience of delivering the Government’s Creative Partnerships programme since 2003 and is the Area Delivery Organisation for Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Merseyside, Halton & Cheshire.
Curious Minds believes in the value of working in partnership with a wide range of people to develop improved outcomes for children and young people by maximising participation and achievement through creative experiences. We believe in the transformational power of art, culture and creativity in enriching the quality of life of children and young people, their families and communities. We believe in valuing children and young people's ideas, interests and concerns at the core of our work and we provide rich opportunities for children and young people to develop decision-making and leadership skills.
Please click on the Curious Minds Link to find out more.
Funding Partners
"Regenerate Pennine Lancashire is a new kind of organisation called an economic development company. It’s designed to help increase prosperity and life choices for people living and working in Pennine Lancashire and to attract in others to work, live or visit”.
Regenerate is owned by the seven Pennine Lancashire local authorities: Lancashire County Council and the borough councils of Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale. It is led by a governing body made up of elected councilors, and by a board made up of chief officers from the councils and representatives from the private sector. The company was formed to help councils deliver projects in ways they could not do before, by pooling expertise and resources, achieving greater value for money and attracting increased levels of investment."
Download a list of Regenerate Pennine Lancashire current projects
Download Dreaming of Pennine Lancashire
Lancashire Arts Development Service: arts transforming lives and places.
Lancashire Arts Development Service provides opportunities for people in Lancashire to experience and participate in a wide range of high quality creative activities. We give advice, information and funding to help a wide range of arts activities take place across Lancashire. We primarily support work, which has a countywide significance or impact. This spans all age ranges and art forms. It also makes a positive contribution to the economy, the environment, education and health.
Creativity Works Regeneration – led by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council Head of Arts.
Creativity Works was first set up in 2002 by the local authority arts officers to fill a gap in creative industry provision in Pennine Lancashire. Over the last few years it developed a networking website and raised the awareness of the sector through 5 successful awards ceremonies. In 2008 the need for our intervention was no longer needed, as the sector was now being served well by other providers so explored ways to utilise our learning and strong working relationships to other areas of work. From this the new Creativity Works structure was devised, to reap the benefits from collective working: provide added value to district good practice potentially reproducing it across the region; to provide a mechanism for strategic and imaginative ideas to be created and to recognise areas where joint campaigns, projects and research will have greater impact jointly delivered.