Top Tip: Creative Facilitation

This month we have invited Janet Hetherington, Arts Manager at Birmingham Childrens Hospital NHS Trust,to share her top tip on quick and easy alternatives to flip charts.

Instead of using flipchart paper think about other materials which you could use. My toolkit has included chalk boards, white boards, brown paper, OHP slides, giant poster paper, table cloths, floor tiles, paper bags, wrapping paper, bingo markers, POSCA (graffiti pens), glitter glue and calligraphy brushes. The list is endless! The 'novelty' factor often encourages people to contribute and respond more creatively.

What is Happiness?

Over the last few weeks progress on setting up the 'What is Happiness?' project has gathered speed and the majority of participant groups identified and ready to go. The project will engage a really broad range of people in various settings, reflecting the cultural and social diversity of the Black Country. This will add a unique dimension to the project and will provide an interesting insight into what happiness means to people from different backgrounds.

Four of the local projects will be working with women's groups. In Wolverhampton a group of South Asian women from the Navajeen Project and other users of the Women's Wellbeing Centre will take part. It is hoped that as well as enabling the women to experience different art forms the project will be a good opportunity to bring users of the centre together to share experiences and breakdown cultural barriers. In Sandwell the project will be working with a group of Yemeni Women that come together once a week to socialise, take part in arts and crafts activities and chat. The Support Worker for this group assures us that these sessions will be lively and noisy and are a source of happiness in themselves!

In Walsall and Dudley the projects will focus on women who have experienced domestic violence and will work in collaboration with two local refuges. As a result of some additional funding provided by Sandwell PCT the project will also be working with residents from Fountain Court, a residential unit for older people with dementia and young people that attend the deaf youth group at Greets Green Access Centre.

Workshops will be starting this monthand work produced during the project will form part of an interactive exhibition that will tour the Black Country later in the year. The exhibition will enable people to take a stroll down happy street and wander through the 'Happiness Estate' made up of cardboard houses embellished with work created by the project participants. Once the workshops get going we will keep you up to date with the groups' progress and will let you have a sneak preview of the work being created. If you would like to know more about the project please contact Claire Carter:
claire@creativityteam.co.uk



Photograph by Multistory

The Good Life

Photo by: Lee Morral:
Some of The Good Life parents and children, with staff from supporting organisations

The Good Life is an ongoing district-wide project in Cannock Chase, delivered by Cannock Chase Council Arts Development and South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust and a wealth of partners and local support. It aims to promote fun ways to family health using creative approaches and the arts, but its potential is much wider. 

Over a year ago, artists Richard Franks and Catherine Tarbuck from Multistory were commissioned through the Artist Professional Development Programme to work with families from Cannock Chase Children's Centre. Together with families and staff from the lead organisations, they developed a series of creative and art based engagement tools to encourage families with barriers to use what is on their doorstep, such as Canock Chase, and link these to a wider programme of healthy living. For example the families grew their own salad in their own painted pots, but also visited a local farm. They personalised wellies, so children wanted to go for a walk in them regardless of the weather! They visited their local park and hunted for treasure.

Participating parents stated that was "life changing", and so the partnership managed to secure additional funding through the Practice Based Commissioning process to convert their experiences into a book to share with others. Written by Arts Development Officer Lisa Shephard, working alongside partners, the artists and graphic designer Gavin Ingram, the team managed to convert the themes in Every Child Matters into a family friendly way. The book could not capture everything and the ideas were still flowing. So with further partnership investment it is now part of an ever-growing programme of activities, involving the development of a website by children for children, by families for families!  It is being externally evaluated by Kate Gant and the second phase is being developed in partnership with Born Communication.

Health professionals and other appropriate staff from organisations who work alongside families will soon be using the book as a way of communicating fun ideas and demonstrating creative approaches, when barriers to living a healthier family lifetsyle are time, confidence, money or motivation. Visit the website at www.thegoodlife.uk.net