Creating Change Quality Principles

Pilot 3 Case Study

Brighton Dome: Miss Represented

Miss Represented operates as an arts collective working with vulnerable young women who face challenging life situations and are considered at risk. We create a safe, non judgmental, nurturing environment for eating, creating, discussion and expression. Miss Represented uses the arts to explore everyday life choices and experience new ways of being in the world where young women can explore issues, feel empowered, build their resilience and have their voices heard. We work with a number of partners to engage participants who will most benefit from this experience.

Miss Represented employs a multi-disciplinary approach ensuring flexibility and choice, art-forms include photography, drama, dance, fashion, music, film and visual arts. We aim to bring communities together and embrace common ground by telling stories and asking questions though cross-art exhibitions or performances of high artistic quality. We invite families, friends, youth workers and the wider community to share in the achievements of these young women and gain a deeper understanding about their lives and the context in which they are living.

Sessions take place at Brighton Youth Centre every Thursday and run from Midday until 4pm. We always begin by making and eating lunch together. We talk, reflect and create. We end with tea and cake. Some sessions, the exhibitions and the performances take place at Brighton Dome.

Funded by: / Brighton Dome, Brighton and Hove City Council, A.C.E., The Rayne Foundation, Artswork
Length of project: / Miss Rep 1 Sept – Dec 2011
Miss Rep 2 Feb – March 2012
Miss Rep 3 Feb – March 2013
Miss Rep 4 Sept 2013 – Sept 2015 and hopefully beyond.
Making Miss Represented sustainable where we can have sessions every week for an extended period of time has been a crucial aim of the project, recognising the value of being able to invest in the most at risk young women in a long term and meaningful way and how that can lead to transformative and healing results.

NB: All quotes, except one where specificed, are taken from an interview with Miss Represented participant ‘E’ by Dr FidelmaHanrahan from the University of Sussex for the research project Beating the Odds, which explores young people’s experiences of intervention services in Brighton and Hove.

Quality Principle 4. Ensuring a positive, child-centered experience Ensuring a positive, child-centered experience for all children and young people, through having the passion, commitment, knowledge and skills for work involving children and young people, helping them to develop as confident individuals and celebrate their achievements. This would include encouraging individual contributions and valuing diversity.

One of the most important aspects of Miss represented is creating a space that is safe, non-judgemental and completely child-centered – it is a space that belongs to the young people. Miss Represented is a space for many things as well as the art; space to chat, eat, chill out, a space to sort out housing issues or to ask advice about some of the challenges the young women may be facing. Having an independent and highly skilled Social Worker in the room is integral to the project being able to have the emotional connection that influences the practice. By having a deeper understanding of the complex issues facing the young people, not necessarily their histories but issues they are facing in the present, it helps us to identify more effective methods of engaging or understanding them. This has reinforced our ethos of allowing a session to be what it will; to work flexibly and responsively to the group. We trust that whatever happens in the session IS the session rather than sticking rigidly to a plan; we treat what comes up as equally valuable as the ‘plan’. Some of the less well attended sessions where an original ‘plan’ has had to be abandoned have given rise to the greatest of breakthroughs. This gives the clear message that the project is absolutely for the young people. We have skills and give guidance with enough to facilitate a response, but we don’t necessarily have an agenda. We are not trying to get the group to do something we want them to do, we want to empower them to do what they want to do.

We allow the drama that happens in the young women’s own lives to exist within the space – life happens and the art can respond to it. Running alongside the way it is a space for everything; eating, sorting out housing, chatting, getting advice about something, also embedded throughout this process is a variety of creative opportunities for all of these things to be expressed and spoken about. If, for example, a conflict arises due to boundaries and personal issues being broached on facebook for a young person and it is disrupting a session, this can lead us into powerful and meaningful discussions whilst ensuring we manage the situation pastorally. Different activities are happening simultaneously in the space managed by the team which can feel chaotic but ultimately means a there is a fine balance where everyone is getting what they need in that moment. Stresses and anxieties that arise due to external factors are picked up on, responded to and if not appropriate to be addressed in that moment, often come back to it another time creatively.

Artists and Facilitators work in a very flexible and responsive way with the young people. In our evaluation sessions, each participant is discussed by the team as an individual. We respond to individual learning needs, individual ways of expression, we create approaches that will encourage, support and empower each individual person in the space as much as possible. Within all this we make tea, food, ensure they have whatever arts materials they need, change rooms, change gear – respond! In short, we serve them! We treat the group like they’re special, because they are. Over time, relationships and trust are built and the project becomes a place where the young people can feel free to be themselves; they don’t feel the need to elevate their status or put up barriers through fear and self preservation. It is clear that sometimes in other environments these young people feel they must be much more guarded, whether it is with their peers, social services or in some cases their families. There is fear and anxiety and a need to be constantly aware in case they have to protect themselves in some way or fight back. The young women on Miss Represented are all deemed vulnerable. Some display risky or challenging behaviours. All are negotiating difficult life circumstances with little or no support network and as a consequence can be confused, angry and without a sense of purpose and belonging, finding themselves getting in trouble with the police, being excluded from education or feeling unable to engage with any positive activity. Relationships with family are often volatile, non existent or complex. Relationships with services and the wider community are often fraught, exasperating and can be steeped in prejudice. The young women can be feared and are often rejected; they can be labelled or sidelined. Engaging with the project sees the young women finding an autonomous, neutral space in which they can operate without fear or judgement. Engaging with different creative approaches engenders an opening up and breaking down of barriers leading to safe discussion and an unpicking of issues and experiences. The young people find their voices and are guided to develop a new understanding of themselves, others and the world around them. Working collaboratively with Artists, Social Workers and other young people the group develop new creative skills that build self esteem, empowerment and resilience to make creative work that becomes a platform for genuine expression and an opportunity to be seen and heard and new and powerful ways. But these things can only occur if the right environment is created from the outset making the group feel safe and reassured to engage with the project.

E: It’s not like we’re just a bunch of ‘vulnerable’ people, it’s like […] everyone’s been through shit, but in a different way […] and no one’s singled out for that either […] It’s like a safe place. […] No one’s going to take the piss out of you. It’s just the most bit of normality, [laughing] still, still to this day, it’s a bit of, like, normalness, even though it’s not normal! [Laughing] […] Like, it’s not just [life] drama, like, and it’s not… Like, here it’s not about, like, you’ve gotta get stoned to do this, and you gotta have drink to do that… Like, you can come here and actually be yourself, and just… You don’t have to fit in either.

The initial stages are about gently building trust and relationships and creating this safe space. As a symbolic and tangible example of the space we create, we build a “tipi” every week at Brighton Youth Centre; this is our space. You belong here, you are welcome here. We make and eat food together, there is no judgement, it is a safe space for freedom of expression and a genuine forum for discussing thoughts and perspectives, a space held safely by the practitioners where the ethos of empathy, respect and understanding is implicit due to the approaches employed by facilitators and modelled by them and longer standing members of the group.

By making the space visibly and consistently the ‘Miss Represented’ space, young people begin to feel this is an environment in which they are respected and viewed as equals who have valid and interesting ideas.

The tipi also featured in the show:

And came along to our evaluation session:

Quality Principle 5. Actively involving children and young people Emphasizing the active involvement of the children and young people, through interactive opportunities – hands-on participation, direct collaboration, creative responses, or other interaction – to develop children and young people’s skills and creativity.

Achieving an environment in which young people at risk feel able to express themselves can be difficult, it can be approached through various means depending on who you have in the room. For example, some young people are happy sitting in a circle and simply going into discussion (once those initial relationships of trust have been built). For other young people the discussion may take place through more visual means. For example, the ‘continuum’ in which people respond to a statement with their viewpoint by standing along an imaginary line, one end being Yes and the other being No. This can spring board into interesting debate or a chance for young people to assess and observe. Sometimes we use large sheets of paper and post-it notes to draw out responses and thoughts which can be shared and discussed anonymously and safely. In any case we are always watching, listening and reading the room to ensure we are responding to the group.

As skills are developed and confidence grows the group begin to share what they are doing more and more with the other members of the collective (artists and participants). More material is generated, themes are more deeply discussed whether through the artwork (characters or collages for example) or through facilitated discussion. Ideas are realised in a number of different ways and art-forms depending on what the young person wants to do. Here the young people begin to take the reigns and direct the trajectory of the work. They are gathering and sharing and creating a thematically linked body of work which can then begin to form a performance or an installation.

More established or confident members of the group become role models and as the group trust each other more to share, there is encouragement and empathy from the other participants as well as the artists and facilitators. This is an essential part of the process making the work youth-led and sustainable. At this point reflection skills begin to emerge with the guidance of the team. Previously the end of the session ‘circle’ where each person shares what they enjoyed or got most out of the day may have felt too high focus or risky but as the group recognise their talents and develop self confidence they begin to share and reflect – when this clicks in it becomes very powerful.

Everything is an exchange of ideas and dialogue – there isn’t a culture of for example, “If you do this, this will happen” or “If you don’t do this, this will be taken away”. We trust the group and they respond. The participants are actively involved in all the decision making and drive the work.

Engagement comes in many forms depending on each individual – the clearest most basic way of judging is that young people vote with their feet. If a member of the group comes week after week but does not participate; this is still engagement. Many young people will take a long time observing and measuring how the project feels against their own anxiety levels or sense of belonging. Their willingness to be there is a success, and how they move forwards in their engagement should be at the their own pace but with consistent encouragement, confidence-building, demonstrations and inspiring messages from the staff team tailored to each individual: “It’s good because you help us reach our full limit but let us take small steps if we want to so we can get there” (Quote from Participant)

A young person’s journey of engagement will not be linear and everyone in the group will be travelling at a different rate to each other. This is why flexible and responsive working is so important – the value of using a multi disciplinary approach is also very helpful here; there is different activity to choose from.

A very basic journey of engagement for one young person may look like this:

  1. Returns to the project.
  2. Eats with everyone at the same time rather than wait to eat alone for fear of embarrassment or scrutiny.
  3. Contributes to a group discussion about for e.g. relationships.
  4. Sits round art table taking out images, begins to collage together in response to ‘relationships’ conversation continuing this dialogue.
  5. Continues with collage and observes some of a music session.
  6. Using themes that have been discussed round the art table creates a character and their life circumstances
  7. Engages in drama activity to create a monologue
  8. Decides doesn’t want to do monologue, maybe it feels too risky. Returns to art table and engages in the themes in a new, maybe more gentle and less high-focus way.
  9. Observes and participates in a music sessions and watches other people perform a section of their monologue.
  10. Is ready to reflect on the different activities already engaged in, possibly without even realising, i.e. art and collage, some music, drama, writing skills, confidence in talking to the rest of the group, contributions to discussion and ideas for show. Begins to think about what she may wish to focus on more intently.

There would be many twists and turns within these stages as the young person develops a sense of ownership and belonging to the work and the group. External factors in a young person’s life may well take them off-course for a time, this is always observed and understood by the team. The young person is guided by the staff team as their confidence develops to try something new or go deeper into a particular activity, idea or thought process around a particular theme.

It takes a long time for a group to drop barriers and allow their anxiety to lessen. Big group exercises are often difficult but can be very special when they happen. As always the focus is not necessarily about fulfilling a plan or getting a particular piece of work ‘done’, but on responding to what is happening for the individuals in the group and actively involving them in the decision making process – asking the group what they would like to do or how they are feeling and then genuinely responding to that.

Artists also show their own work, young people see their work in action, e.g. observing over time Gemma’s (visual artist) commissioned piece of work coming to life and then being displayed in public, coming to Kassia’s (musician) gig in the Brighton Dome Studio and watching her music videos. The young people feel connected to the arts community, they have a sense that they have permission to be there, in fact more than that, they know the artist.

Quality Principle 7. Developing a sense of ownership and belonging Focusing on children and young people’s sense of ownership and belonging, through encouraging choice, autonomy, decision making and creative responses, so that young people can make an informed judgement about ”this is, or could be, or isn’t for me”

We employ a multi-disciplinary, free flowing approach to creative work with young people; allowing creativity to rise out of the initial chaos with careful guidance. There is not a fixed creative idea from the artists of what might be produced with the young people, for example, we would not begin saying we are going to make a play about domestic violence. Creative exercises are employed by the lead facilitator to stimulate discussion and debate – this may spawn ideas about making a play about domestic violence, but would only come about if the idea had genuinely come from a young person and the rest of the group were also in agreement that this is what they want to do. The artists work together with the young people in exploring different creative ways of unpicking, presenting and expressing their ideas and thoughts in response to the discussion. The approach is that of a dialogue; the facilitators and artists can learn as much from the young people as the young people can learn from them. Sharing in the creative process by operating as an arts collective means the young people are guided and supported in a safe environment, but it avoids the authoritarian teacher-pupil model. Social themes and artistic ideas are investigated through personal experience or shared experience, or by discussing the themes in the context of a wider scope using existing art, media reports or magazines for example. Or, an investigation of ideas or issues may be explored through more directly creative means such as the creation of a character; this one-step-removed approach is a safe way of unpicking particular feelings or perspectives and can be a springboard for further creative activity for example using the character as stimulus to write a monologue, create a song, or make a visual arts piece, thus generating an opportunity for it to be shared in a public context. This dialogic approach ensures the young people are making the decisions about the progression of the session or the activity – they have autonomy.