COVID-19 Series: Developing an Element Project, Virtually.
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. This is the final blog-post from Alex, before moving onto Element Young Creatives themselves, and their response to their creativity during this time.
View our first ever fully virtual exhibition here!
Designing a full Element project, virtually
We began 2020, as an Element team, in what we assumed was full knowledge of how our year would look regarding care leaver projects: we were booked up for the year, and timings for all projects across London had been confirmed. And then … Well, we all know what happened next. In the height of lockdown, our survival as an organisation was under threat. Thanks to ongoing partnership work with Local Authorities however, no projects were out-and-out cancelled, although some were postponed. Facing a limping cashflow, our dual funding model majorly helped us out and we were fortunate to have our work during COVID-19 part-funded by Arts Council England, as well as receiving ongoing support from the Fore Trust and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. This support, as well as ongoing partnerships, meant that we had the luxury of immediate financial safety - which brought with it space and time - to do some focussed creative thinking, and quest for innovative solutions to maintain our work with new (as well as existing) young people.
And so Maeve (Head of Programmes and Network) approached Westminster Council, our longest-standing partner, and suggested we pilot a full Element creative project, to be run completely virtually. We were delighted to be met with a positive curiosity and support for working this out from Westminster. We’ve now reached the end of the project, and the brilliant care leavers we worked with are prepping their very own virtual exhibition, to showcase and celebrate their artwork. How did we get here, and what changed from our “normal” projects?
Collecting referrals
Normally, once we have been commissioned, the Element team go into Local Authority Leaving Care Team meetings to present the Element project and to begin collecting referrals from Social Workers and Personal Advisors. As these meetings were not happening in the usual way, Maeve was able to present virtually, and exchanges with workers were predominantly done over email and phone. This is where having an embedded partnership with Westminster really paid off, as the team are aware of Element and our work, and many workers will have referred to previous projects. We really value our close collaboration with Social Workers and Personal Advisors to find the care leavers who would most benefit from an Element project. It underpins our relational, holistic approach to supporting participants.
Pre-project meetings
Before a project starts, we always arrange to meet with the young people referred beforehand. These meetings happen in a space that both the young person and the Element team are comfortable and happy with: local coffee shops and supported accommodations are the norm. When it became either impossible or much more difficult to arrange meetings in these spaces, we opted for video calls instead. In fact, for an initial meeting, this format proved successful: young people were much more likely to “attend”, the stakes felt lower to engage, and the Element team were able to fit a lot more of these calls in throughout the day (our pre-COVID initial meeting weeks would look like an olympic distance cyclist on Strava, I’ll tell you that much for free …). These calls also had the benefit of young people being able to show us their work on screen if they chose to do so, and so it offered another point of connection that our “traditional” way of meeting may not have done. In fact, these meetings were so effective that we may take them forward into our post-COVID project work.
Pre-project prep
We know from participant and alumni consultation that one of the most appealing parts of being involved in an Element project is the access to high quality art materials that we bring to sessions. We also know that during lockdown, participants - just like everyone else - would have had varying levels of materials available to them in their homes. So once a young person has committed to the project, we send them one of our creative care bundles, filled with art materials that we would use within Element virtual sessions, and that could of course also be used in free time for extra creations. Starting a project on the same (sketch) page as everyone else was important for us to achieve, and these bundles gave us the chance to do just that.
The sessions
Three cheers for Zoom, which has been our online video platform for all our sessions with care leavers. Before the project began, all members of the Element team attended facilitation training for online working from the amazing Kate Weiler. Using fancy features (whilst also taking advantage of all safety features), we were able to design sessions that remained true to our core content aims, by being interactive, collaborative, and fun. The sessions themselves followed a similar arc to our physical sessions, introducing themes and discussion points around positive aspects of identity. Our method of engagement revolved around games and energetic activities to keep the mood peppy; and multiple and various opportunities for sharing art, thoughts and ideas to encourage connection and reflection.
Alternative forms of engagement
Whilst our consultation with existing alumni showed us that many young people like the video session interface, we are well aware that this does not apply to everyone. In a world that was suddenly cut off from physical meet-ups and face-to-face modes of socialisation, switching to the screen can seem weird, daunting, and unappealing to some. For this reason, we designed alternative ways to engage with the Element project for some of the Westminster young people. This approach started with the individual young person, and identified collaboratively a preferred mode of communication. For a couple of the young people this looked like having our #CreateDaily challenges sent through to their phone and sharing back to the Element team their individual work; for another it became fortnightly creative check-ins with two members of the Element team. A bonus to being such a small and nimble team meant that we were able to adapt and work flexibly to support these young people in their own creative journeys.
The celebration
As those of you who have attended an Element exhibition will know, the final showcase of all the artwork participants have made on a project is a major event. In the past, participants have shown their work at the Tate Britain, the Saatchi Gallery, the V&A, Soho Theatre … Their work is seen and celebrated by their workers, friends, family, Element arts partners, Local Authority representatives, and members of the public. It’s a really special time to acknowledge the work, commitment and creative energy that participants put into their project. Of course during this time, this kind of event has been impossible. And yet, we were desperate to keep that celebration as a key focal point of the Element virtual project. It was with great excitement, then, that Maeve spearheaded a collaboration between Element Young Creatives and artist duo Molly Stredwick and Elliot Martin to co-design an online gallery, exhibiting all the work made by the current group of participants. Molly and Elliot have been guests in virtual sessions, asking questions and throwing out suggestions for the young people to discuss and build on. Taking everything they gleaned from this, they then went off to work their digital magic, and you can view the very entertaining results here. You are warmly invited, and will receive a virtual celebratory glass of fizz on your way in. Chin chin!
Working virtually with young people: views from Maeve
It’s fitting that the group of young people we met virtually during lockdown have chosen ‘Standing Patient: People With Different Flavours’ as the name for their upcoming virtual exhibition. The importance of patience, both with ourselves and others, is what I’ve reflected on most during this time- personally and in conversation with young people and my colleagues.
At the start of lockdown it was overwhelming to imagine how we were going to sustain and build new connections with young people. There are aspects of the work we do at Element that seemed impossible to be replicated virtually. However, we realised early on that most of the activities, games and forms of communication we use in our work are in fact translatable to the virtual world. Being forced to work so much “online” has highlighted for me the importance of understanding what makes connection possible at all.
This process of reflecting on connection is captured for me by Lisa Cherry’s statement from a recent training session: ‘we can only meet someone as deeply as we’ve met ourselves’. Lockdown forced me to consider the true extent and importance of the ‘Three Rs’ model for supporting children and young people in feeling safe, as well as myself and my colleagues: ‘regulate, relate, reason’.
In the first few weeks of lockdown we chose the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ as the foundation for our virtual sessions, incorporating activities that encourage regulation. For example, every session of our virtual project has started with an activity called ‘Shaking Off Your Baggage’- whereby the facilitator encourages the group to acknowledge what might feel heavy or exhausting for them- emphasising the importance of not hiding and shaming your feelings. In this activity, everyone shakes their arms, legs, head and body, before ‘throwing’ their baggage across the screen to a chosen person. This person ‘catches’ all the baggage, and ‘throws’ it to one side for the remainder of the session. Another example is from our creative check-ins with young people individually- over the phone and through Zoom. We’ve started and ended each creative check-in with the activity ‘Three Words to Describe How I’m Feeling Right Now’. Again, this activity has been a way of asking young people, and our team, to remember to check in with how they’re feeling.
Taking a playful and accepting approach to feelings has created a virtual environment that can support empathy, curiosity and trust. In our first virtual project session we collectively produced a set of group expectations. We usually do this during our in-person projects, but I more consciously asked young people to read the expectations aloud, at the start of each session. Initially, this was because it wasn’t possible for me to stick the written expectations up on the wall next to the group. Over time, reading the expectations aloud taught me that we can always ground ourselves and relate better through repetition.
As we move closer towards our first ever virtual exhibition, I’m able to reflect on Element’s approach in a way that I hadn’t imagined at the start of lockdown. As an organisation, Element has been forced to focus in on and find new routines and ways to run activities that young people connect with. Through all the uncertainty, I’ve become more aware of my own reactions to disruption and how to become more aware of other people’s differing reactions to disruption too. I’ve learnt how to better reflect on my approaches to youth work. I’ve noticed how our team goes from strength to strength as we learn new ways to support each other.
In the next few months, I look forward to further deepening my knowledge of working in a relational and trauma-informed framework, as Element starts to explore this more as an organisation. In the meantime, I reflect with gratitude on what young people have created and learnt during this first virtual project, and what myself and my colleagues have learnt too. I remember that we grow in kindness for ourselves, as we learn to be patient and gentle with other people.