Creativity Plus
Raising the profile of work-based learning for young people in Hampshire’s creative industry
The Creativity Plus programme is focused on growing an innovative work-based learning provision in the Southampton area and ensuring it’s sustainability. At the heart of Creativity Plus is the Creative Case for Diversity and ensuring equality of access to entry-level jobs in the creative and cultural industries.
Credit: Rachel Dunford, Zoie Logic Workshop, August 2017
The programme consists of two work strands. The first is to champion work-based learning as a means of diversifying Hampshire’s creative workforce. Through the launch of a new ‘Creative and Cultural Industries Employer Forum’, the challenges, benefits, ideas and perspectives of employers on work-based learning programmes have been discussed and subsequently taken into consideration with regards to the future of our employability and work-based learning offers.
But whilst seeking to increase the range of creative and cultural industry employers engaging in work-based learning projects with young people, the second strand of Creativity Plus centres around a series of workshops for young people designed to boost awareness of these opportunities and career progression routes into the creative and cultural industries available to young people.
Lead by industry specialists, these workshops introduce young people to different art disciplines and careers such as film-making and theatrical makeup artistry, as well as educating them on entrepreneurship. Through these regular workshops, young people are given the opportunity to pursue enterprising ideas of their own with support from guest speakers and Artswork staff as well as completing an Arts Award qualification.
Credit: Kate Griffiths Workshop, September 2017
“The Creativity Plus programme has opened up opportunities that I wouldn’t normally be interested in or have the confidence to do and has allowed me to see different art forms in a different way. I would never have gone to a dance workshop before but I have learnt that there is a lot more to dance than I thought there was and I have enjoyed being pushed out of my comfort zone. The professionals leading the workshops have always treated us like professionals ourselves and not kids. We have become quite a close knit group and developed proper friendships through this experience. The creativity plus programme has opened up so many doors for me and made me want to explore many more new art forms and maybe even pursue a career in one that I have already tried!’
– Desiree Bratcher, Age 17, Creativity Plus participant
If you are a young person looking to learn more about careers in the arts, please contact Jay-Michelle Mendivil, our Creativity Plus Co-ordinator, for more information via jay@artswork.org.uk or call 07802 256 760 to get involved.