Actio - Research & Development
Partnership Investment Programme
As part of our wider work, Actio Consortium have been supported by our partner, Ignition CIC, to develop a three year research and development programme exploring the impact of our work and how it can inform and influence other providers to be more responsive to the needs of children and young people with SEND.
Whilst this programme is embedded within the Arts sector, the learnings will have the potential to be applied in sports and leisure, social engagement, and other sectors more broadly also.
Partnership Investment Programme
The Partnership Investment Programme will allow Actio and the Culture Consortium Shropshire to:
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Develop a connected arts and cultural infrastructure which is able to support and sustain access deliver to a diverse range of high quality activities for children and young people in rural, and urban, Shropshire.
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Raise the profile and increase the understanding of the value of the arts and culture to children and young people.
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Provide a mechanism for organisations, agencies, and representatives from the arts, heritage, cultural, education and learning sectors to work actively in partnership to share expertise and knowledge and leading to improved quality of delivery/provision and communication.
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Advocate, engage and influence stakeholders and decision makers locally, regionally and nationally.
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Attract and increase resources to improve provision of arts and cultural activities for children and young people.
To help us understand how the Partnership Investment could support the development of activities in Shropshire for children and young people with SEND, we undertook a consultation exercise exploring what the All In Short Breaks offers provided families and where the gaps may be.
This helped us to understand how limited the arts offer is for these children and young people, and what we might be able to do to address this.
As part of the Partnership Investment we have secured £75,000 additional funding for direct delivery of activities that have an arts focus to be delivered over the three year programme. The All In Short Breaks activity program will be developed including the additional £25,000 per year to enhance the arts offer available within the Actio activity program. These opportunities are open to local artists and organisations who are members of Shropshire Culture Consortium.
Research & Development
This funding will enable us to appoint a dedicated researcher to develop a best practice toolkit. This toolkit will be for practitioners and organisations who deliver Arts & Culture activity for children and young people with SEND and their families. The researcher will have access to the All In Short Breaks activity menu to explore best practice in delivering activity to these children and young people.
This will be a practical "Toolbag" with an arts focus which will have transferable skills for other sectors, such as Sports & Leisure, Social Engagement etc.
The toolkit will be produced in a digital format using interactive elements to demonstrate best practice in areas such as
Sensory Engagement
Total Communication
Engagement of harder to reach children, young people, and families
Differentiated Activity
Child Led Practice
The researcher will be in post by end of July 2021 and will start work September, until May 2022, with the final toolkit being published in June 2022. Please see the brief and specification for researcher post here.
This is a unique opportunity to combine the skills and knowledge of the two consortiums (Actio and Culture Consortium Shropshire) to place our work as an exemplar of cross sector working which can be utilised by anyone engaging with children and young people with SEND and their families.
Arts & Culture Provision
As part of the Arts Funding for 2021 from Actio, we have commissioned 4 artists to work in partnership with multi activity providers in the county, who are part of the ‘All In Short Breaks’ programme. These commissions will enrich the activities taking place at the venues and offer children and young people opportunity to take part in high quality artistic experiences.
The artists commissioned include: Storytellers; Theatre Maker; & Visual Artist. They are working with identified providers during August to December 2021.
Each artist has identified an area of research enquiry they would like to explore through their delivery, which will document and enhance their residency. The residency, will improve their practice when working with children and young people working with SEND, as well as enabling opportunities for the multi activity providers to learn from the artists in residence.
Young Presenters Program
5 young people aged 11 to 25 with disabilities are participating in the programme. The young people were recruited through an open call and were asked to submit a short digital film audition. These young people will be producing a series of films exploring the activities available across the All In Short Breaks menu.
The Learning Disability England funding has enabled Actio to commission 2 award winning professional film makers, to work with the young presenters to film and curate a YouTube channel. The footage on YouTube will showcase the activity within the ‘All In Short Breaks’ menu and be used by potential ‘All In Short Breaks’ participants to find out about what activities they can take part in.
The young presenters have decided the best way of showcasing the activity within the ‘All In’ menu is to create a YouTube channel. This has been a fantastic opportunity and great way for young people with disabilities to share information with their peers and families using digital content.
Part of the Arts Connect funding is being used to deliver a filmmaking and editing training day for participants, so the young presenters can be engaged in editing and curating the final look of the YouTube channel.