Curious Project 6
An experimental testing ground for creative involvement of young people in place & space.
HomeRegeneration Professional
What do you mean by regeneration & renewal?
In the context of working with children & young people Curious Project 6 sees this in its broadest sense:
Physical: The involvement of young people in the development and delivery of their physical environments. for example, designing parks, public art, environmental improvements
Social: The involvement of young people in exploring community and issues affecting communities, what makes a place.
Both these elements will provide a number of outcomes for young people and opportunities for partner to engage and create collaborations.
I need to consult young people how do I go about this?
This website will aim to increase your knowledge of partner’s roles and provide practical information for project development for you to proactively seek opportunities to engage groups. Rather than just approach a youth worker with a group to do a one off session why not offer to look at how this can be delivered in more creative way combining your knowledge and skills, working with a creative practitioner?
Identify the initial purpose for engaging young people? This may only be at an early stage but being clear about this enables partnerships with the right people to develop. The initial key is to allow time for engaging young people to plan and prepare properly with partners. Needing consultation complete in a matter of weeks does not create meaningful engagement for young people and reduces the quality of partnership development with partners working with young people.
There are generally two routes in which to engage young people, one is through the formal sector and the other is through the informal sector.
Register to access case studies to inspire how you could develop a project
Who do I contact to support me in working with young people?
With in your local authority area there are a number of partners who have a role to play with in the regeneration process and involving young people in some form will be part of their remit. Below is a list and brief explanation of the their role:
- Curious Minds delivers the creative Partnership program for Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Merseyside, Halton and Cheshire. They currently work with over 170 schools connecting creative practitioners with teachers and pupils to develop long-term programmes of creative teaching and learning.
- Arts Development Officers ADO’s are based within local authorities and support the use of creative methods of delivery and have experience in developing funding bids, working with artists and linking their core program with other colleagues with in the local authority. If you have a project idea, your local ADO will be happy to discuss your ideas. Not all local authorities have ADO’s in place and some are based in leisure trusts that work in partnership with the local authority. ADO’s are support by a national body called the Arts Council England, the North West office based in the Manchester. Areas with in Lancashire County Council also have the support of a County Arts Unit with a team of officers with areas of focus including young people & regeneration.
- Pennine Lancashire has a number of Arts Organisations who deliver a wide variety of creative projects across the region and would also help in the development of projects. A number of freelance artists working across the northwest region also work as individuals not directly linked with organisations. Working with an individual artist can provide a bespoke approach working with artists who specialise in engagement in their practice.
- Young People’s Service Each local authority has a youth service provision and your school may already have links to the service working in the area. Youth Workers often have contacts and link with other agencies working on the ground and can support work both formally through and school and informally through other provision like youth clubs.
- Young Lancashire: support and deliver a number of projects within the voluntary youth work sector and have contacts for groups and projects in your local area.
- There are also a number of other local and regional organisation e.g., Groundwork Pennine Lancashire all of who can be found through this site.
Register to view the directory in I’m looking for and make new contacts.
How can I involve the informal sector to support this group of young people?
Informal sector: The describes where young people access services on a voluntary basis through youth clubs, after school groups, positive activities during holiday periods etc. Across the Pennine Lancashire the Young People Service (YPS) operates through Lancashire County Council in Pendle, Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale & Ribble valley and YPS in Blackburn with Darwen. The service runs through three new strands:
- Open Access
- Information & Guidance
- Prevent & Inclusion
The services still run open youth club setting youth and community venues across Pennine Lancashire and open most evenings & weekends and deliver open provision and project based activity. Youth workers operate in a ‘detached’ capacity engaging young people on the streets of neighbourhoods. Increasing meaningful contact time for young people, particularly hard to reach young people, is key for the young peoples service and project development through partnerships working contributes to this outcome. Each district will have a plan which identifies core areas of work, tapping into supporting these objectives will help developing the partnerships.
The voluntary sector are also a key resource and often are keen to be involved in project to their group’s opportunities to engage. Support by local people in many cases, these groups will be operating in the key areas of need.
Find you local youth workers by registering on this site.
How can I engage schools in regeneration opportunities for young people?
Where young people attend for statuary education, schools, colleges etc, this provides opportunity to work with groups in a more controlled environment with the support of teachers. Careful consideration needs to be made to how this will impact on the school as a number of outside bodies working with young people approach schools. However opportunities to involve school and college communities in regeneration & renewal does provide a unique opportunity for the teachers to look at how curriculum delivery can be enhanced by local regeneration activity.
Register to access case studies of how regeneration activity has worked successfully in a long term way in a high school and connect with local interested teachers.
At what stage should I involve young people?
This will depend on the size and level of engagement required in the process. Often consideration of connecting with young people is left quite late and therefore making it challenging for the support partners and also less meaningful. In this climate of young people’s voice, young people are more aware of what is real and tokenistic engagement. Young people always value being honest from the beginning this prevents raising false expectation and also allows a relationship with young people to develop on an equal footing. The sooner you can engage the partners you work with young people the better, to explore possibilities and connect to shared plans and objectives. Time is always the key and also the major issue.
Young people given the time and continuity can be strong leaders of projects often coming up with their own ideas and solutions. Youth led activity needs more time to initiate but can also be a step up from a smaller project, helping to develop pathways.
Young people in the youth council produced a young peoples charter to gives you some simple pointers to think about when engaging young people.
Register and find out how others have managed this and be inspired.
How do I fund these opportunities?
This the most challenging element of developing many project ideas particularly for the formal sector. The aim of this website is to build a body of evidence to support more sustainable engagement of young people in regeneration as funding stream continue to be short term. In developing a wide variety of partners from the outset the opportunities for funding increases as partnership working strengthens any potential bid and also unlocks and pools resources available through your new partners. For example youth workers in the voluntary sector can access funds a school may not be able to which could involve working within an informal and formal context. Regeneration officers will have funds to look at consultation, which could be unlocked and used in a more creative way to engage young people.
Engaging young people early in the process will also strengthen your bid, as many funders looking at projects involving young people need to see a level of consultation prior to the application. This is, as the framework is advocating, good practice for a successful project and time needs to be planned for this part of the process. Using creativity opens other opportunities for funding and are included in the list of the funding streams:
Register and visit the Funding section to find out what is available
How can creativity be used as a tool to do this?
Working in a creative way with practitioners like, for example artists, allow young people to take a journey of exploration in relation to an area of regeneration & renewal. Register to access the case studies. These can include expressing their hopes and aspirations of a neighbourhood they would want to live in through film or performance or really understanding the process of developing a piece of open space through working with architects and planners. The creative mechanisms allow young people to share their voice in arenas, which aren’t particularly youth friendly, such as council meeting and forums. Ultimately working more closely with partners to look at how the process of engaging young people in a meaningful way will offer a unique perspective, which will create a more understood and valued product.
“Creativity develops the capacity to imagine the world differently. We all need an ability not just to cope with change but also to positively thrive on it and engineer it for ourselves”.
Working alongside creative practitioners provides an opportunity to take risks, develop new techniques and engage with young people in an alternative way.
What support or training can I access in this area of work?
Curious Project 6 will also be developing a training program linked directly to this area of work and through the website opportunities will become available.
Register and look out for training opportunities and links to other organisations you can support this
Use the forum to let us know of any training you feel you or colleagues could benefit. Maybe this is an area of work you would like to develop as a lead worker in your district?
How do I know if it has been successful?
There are a number of ways to know you have been successful from formal attainment in school to the personal stories of how young people have moved on through the process of engagement. The trick is to embed systems to capture the evidence, using clear objectives and reflecting through out the journey using interesting ways to collect the information.
Register and see our ‘how to…page for ideas