COVID-19 Series: How is Element Supporting its Network?
How is Element supporting its network, right now?
Now that we’re 3 months into this “new normal”, what’s changed for Element since writing our COVID-19 statement? Well, our work has formed into three distinct areas: supporting our existing network of care leavers; maintaining creative engagement with Element school students; and developing a full Element care leaver project, to be delivered entirely online. Over the next 3 blog posts, we will be writing about these three areas. This series will finish with Element Young Creatives themselves, talking about their involvement in Element’s lockdown offer. First up: how we’ve continued to work with Element alumni over this time.
In these very particular times in which we are living, our aim is to maintain contact with Element alumni through online creative activities shared between a peer network, and in doing so we hope to increase wellbeing and social connection. We’ve been using the New Economic Foundation’s 5 Ways to Wellbeing to support all our content design.
In practice, what this looks like is varied activities and touchpoints, that Element alumni can get involved in, from week to week:
#CreateDaily Challenges - (you guessed it) daily
We’ve been sending out one creative challenge each day to the alumni WhatsApp groups. These challenges are designed to be speedy and fun, with the option of expanding them into longer-form pieces of art. We’ve seen detailed drawings of each other’s dream meals; we’ve guessed the animal from ripped pieces of paper; we’ve found out favourite colours through photographs of nature; we’ve tested our superhero knowledge through colourful sketches … These challenges have been an important way to share, connect, and learn more about each other. They’re also a great way to keep creative whilst the kettle’s boiling for your next cup of tea! Fancy joining in? Check out our Twitter and Insta stories each day for the latest challenge. You can also see past challenges and examples on our #CreateDaily story highlights!
How has this evolved? To get things started, these challenges were enacted through the Element team posting a challenge each day to the groups. Now, we ask for challenge suggestions from Element Young Creatives, who suggest both a challenge and their own artistic response to the challenge, and share in the group. This shift has made our engagement a lot more collaborative. It’s also opened up the design of the challenges to many different creative brains, which is always a good thing!
Culture Club - weekly
Each week, we’ve been choosing one online cultural “thing” for the network to engage with. Then we come together, on a video call, to discuss this thing. We’ve watched anime films; streamed live theatre; listened to history podcasts; had virtual tours of world-famous galleries … The discussion sessions themselves have been a mix of sharing our thoughts and opinions, sketching our emotional responses to the art, and identifying themes and messages. The new piece for Culture Club is suggested every Friday, meaning that should Element alumni want, there’s always something to engage with over the weekend. It’s been a useful way to capture all the incredible online cultural output happening during this time: there’s so much stuff out there, it can sometimes seem overwhelming to know where to start. Our discussions have led to much learning, with a fair dose of hilarity along the way.
How has this evolved? We started Culture Club with recommendations from both the team and from Element Young Creatives, across the span of cultural output. The terrible tragedies that unfolded in America, and that swept through the world in collective mourning and activism, led us to change the focus of these sessions. Recommendations now specifically focus on unheard or sidelined stories. We started this new focus by watching Ava DuVernay’s Selma. We’ll continue with films, documentaries, books, articles, albums, and visual art pieces that may contribute to the whole group (team absolutely included) learning new and important facts about how we’ve got to this place we’re in.
Stretching and Breathing - weekly
At the start of lockdown, the Element team became very aware that many young people we work with were moving much less than they normally would. We were also aware that uncertainties around college, work, and next steps may be exacerbated by the uncertainty created by COVID-19. As such, we started an afternoon stretching and breathing session, to gently encourage movement in our bodies, and to introduce breathing exercises that may help to calm our minds.
How has this evolved? Now that we’ve regular members of the Element network in these sessions, we’ve started sharing resources amongst the group, for online guided meditations and yoga and fitness videos, as well as sharing real-time stretches for us all to practice. We’ve changed the time slot for this session to the morning, to contribute to encouraging a positive routine of morning activity.
Virtual Drop-in - weekly
In “normal” times, Element welcomes alumni into our offices in Borough, every two weeks, for Friday afternoon fun and creativity. It has become a space for any alumni members to come along and meet their peers, share food, and work on their own creative development. It’s also a space where the Element team can pass on exciting opportunities to the young people we work with. During lockdown, this regular group-meet hasn’t been possible. The first thing we did, when lockdown was enforced, was to set up a virtual drop-in across the same time, making it every Friday afternoon rather than fortnightly. Virtual drop-ins have retained their sense of fun and community, and been a lovely way to end the week!
How has this evolved? Just before lockdown, the Element team had secured three brilliant Element alumni to act as co-facilitators for two upcoming projects. With no new physical projects taking place, it was looking like these young people would have to wait indefinitely to flex their project facilitation muscles. Then we had a brainwave: what if these three designed and delivered their own drop-in session (and were paid for their time)? What followed were three beautifully curated, fully interactive, and joyfully facilitated sessions, enjoyed by other members of the Element alumni network. We aim to continue in this spirit of collaboration and guest facilitation going forward.
Individual Check-Ins - fortnightly
We’re very aware that different people prefer different modes of communication: whilst some may love instant messaging, others may actively turn their notifications off. Whilst some relish a good old fashioned conversation on the phone, others feel awkward talking for lengthy periods of time. At the start of lockdown, we let all Element alumni members know of our plans going forward. Of all our active members, 90% wanted to engage with Element’s lockdown offer and be involved in our lockdown-special WhatsApp groups. As well as contacting the others individually, we also check-in with all active alumni monthly, to keep up communication in whichever way is preferred. We really value these check-ins as a way of maintaining connection, and hearing about creative things the network has been getting up to during this time.
How has this evolved: This one hasn’t really: based on a very simple check-in structure, it’s stayed pretty stable during these past few months and allowed us to build consistency into our lockdown approach.
Individual Creative Consultations - bespoke timeline
For those alumni members who are particularly interested in the arts, the Element team have been offering individual creative consultations, to hear more from the young person, develop their creative ideas, and if wanted to set creative briefs during this time. This has either been done within the structure of working towards an Bronze Arts Award qualification, or more freeform and following individual interests. So far, we have supported explorations into poetry, mood boarding, animation, abstract painting, and fashion.
How has this evolved: We’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing artists as co-facilitators and session collaborators over the years. Recently, Gabi Marsh joined one of our creative consultations and was interviewed by an Element Young Creative for a section in their Arts Award work. This felt like an important synthesis between Element’s work “then” and now, and allowed for creativity to take centre-stage. Thanks, Gabi!
All of these activities assume that the young people have art materials at home, right? What’s that about?
We were really careful not to make any assumptions about the materials and access to materials that our alumni network might have at home. We knew we wanted to keep on supporting and championing creativity of the network during this time. And so very early on, we made a commitment to send individual creative care bundles to the Element network. This was made possible through emergency funding from the Arts Council, as well as support from our council and schools partners. Our parcels contained sketch books, watercolour and lead pencils, fine coloured pens, craft paper, postcards, and creative care pages filled with mindful drawing exercises, self-sooth practices, and poetry. These creative care bundles have worked well on many levels: first of all, who doesn’t like getting a parcel in the post?! Secondly, they served to remove barriers to getting involved in artistic practice; and lastly they helped inform our activity designs, as the Element team could confidently know what resources we could rely on everyone having when we set a daily creative challenge, or group activity. They’ve also served as a happy reminder that sometimes it’s the simple solutions that clang the loudest!
What has made all this work possible?
The Element team has been reflecting on how we’ve been able to mobilise pretty quickly in this time of crisis, and we’ve come up with a couple of reasons we think are important:
Element has an existing alumni network
We’ve a network with 70 active Element Young Creatives. This meant that as soon as lockdown was announced, we knew the group of young people we could creatively support, and we could mobilise quickly to consult with these young people on what they wanted from us during this time. This instant connection and collaboration was made possible through having built up positive relationships with the network, all of whom have attended an Element project in the past, and remain engaged in network activities.
Element practices “swirled engagement”
The Element team has been trying to visualise/conceptualise how we talk about our engagement with young people. I (Alex) present to you “swirled engagement” and in true Element spirit have done a (patchy!) doodle to try to explain (see end of blog post).
Element champions youth voice
As a team, we knew that we wanted to keep Element going, and keep creatively supporting young people we work with, if operationally we were able to do so. Once we had secured emergency funding and had existing clients commission virtual projects, we knew this would be possible. The rest - the nuts and bolts of what we would do and how we would do it - was based around an initial rapid consultation with the network. Since then, we’ve actively encouraged Element Young Creatives to take the reins during sessions; to suggest challenges and activities; and to use Element’s virtual spaces creatively and collaboratively.
Element works with individuals first, groups next
We’re proud of the size of our network, which thanks to targeted work from Maeve, Element’s Head of Programmes and Network, has grown significantly in the last two years. On the other side of the coin, we’re still a very small organisation, and delivery of our projects is split between all three of us on the Element team. This means that we’re able to build relationships with participants that aim to understand each young person as a unique individual with specific interests, needs and wants; with a specific artistic style, sense of humour, and preferred pizza topping. Our work during COVID-19 has facilitated a multiplicity of voices coming together, rather than assuming a group starts from exactly the same place. Our individual creative consultations and check-ins have ensured that our focus remains on the individuals within the network, and embraces the wonderful heterogeneity of Element Young Creatives.
Element trusts in process, not just end-product
Element Young Creatives make beautiful pieces of art. In “normal” life, these pieces have been displayed at the V&A Museum, the Tate, the Saatchi Gallery, and community spaces across London. It’s important to showcase the talent and creativity of young people. It’s also important for the Young Creatives themselves to celebrate the process that led to hanging their work in galleries. This process includes learning about new art forms; allowing surprise and imagination to take a seat at the table; experimenting with different materials; reflecting on themes and messages that seem important to portray; and building a creation from a completely blank page or canvas or space. We may not be able to exhibit in the way we normally do; but we can still champion this process, which is so important for positive identity formation, raising ambitions, and boosting wellbeing.
Challenges
This time has brought with it opportunities to innovate whilst also exposing new challenges for our service. Here are the challenges that we are actively working on as a team (we’ll be sure to post an update on these as we design new ways of working around these areas):
How might we engage meaningfully and long-lastingly in anti-racist approaches, using collaborative learning and actioning involving the Element team, Element Young Creatives, and the Element Board? This is a major piece of work that we’ve started and remain committed to embedding. Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be workshopping directly with Element Young Creatives to write a specific anti-racist policy, and will be prioritising actions from these workshops both in everyday practice and in our strategy. More soon, once we can coherently and genuinely show what we have and will continue to put in place within our organisation.
How might we maintain virtual engagement when lockdown eases but not quite enough to begin physical delivery again?
How might we fully ensure that those who are socially nervous feel properly comfortable clicking “join meeting” for a live, online session?
How might we support those in our network with English as a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth!) language?
How might we make sure that engagement with Element online activities is not directly stopping online with new, more “out of comfort zone” opportunities for young people?
If you’ve got to the end of this blog post, you deserve a medal! Thanks for your time in reading, and we hope it was useful to hear in more detail the Element lockdown offer for our alumni network. Please do get in touch if you have any thoughts to pass on. Next up: hear about our work with school students (watch this space!).
