|
|
Walsall Youth Art| Walsall Youth Art | Walsall Youth Art
Geographical Area: Walsall
Age Range Min: 14
Age Range Max: 25
Gender Specific: Some projects are gender specific.
| Culturally Specific: no
Method of Access: Referrals usually come from a wide range of agencies that work with young people such as Social Services, Connexions, Youth Service, and Schools. All project work is targeted, usually at young people who are not benefiting from other provision. The studio also operates an open access policy with many project participants return to Walsall Arts to work on their own projects, developing their own interests and ideas.
| | Description | Walsall Youth Arts provides art and media training for young people. Often working with young people who are not benefiting from any other provision, taking part on a project gives them a chance to express themselves and a sense of achievement. Projects and workshops provide opportunities for young people to learn new skills and to develop their social and personal skills.
Studios and access to a range of freelance project workers means that a wide range of projects in; digital art, music and sound production, screen printing, aerosol art, drama and video production, are possible. Ideas for projects are driven by young people and partnership organisations. Recent work has included ‘Sex Lies and Love?’ a project working with vulnerable young women about issues of men grooming and controlling women. The use of drugs played a key element alongside issues surrounding healthy relationships.
‘My Body My Self’ a project and arts exhibition which ran earlier in 2004 was the result of an arts worker and outreach worker talking to women who have been involved in prostitution and sexual exploitation about how they feel about themselves and their bodies. The Project was run in collaboration with the Safe Project which carries out outreach work visiting saunas and flats and giving out food, providing needle exchange and condoms and it looked at how the women’s experiences influenced their sense of ownership of their bodies and how they deal with their work and their everyday lives.
The number of participants on each project or workshop varies as does the length of time each project takes and the session times. Discussions about drugs and other substances can occur at any time on projects and youth workers are trained to deal with such issues and will respond to day to day things as the young people express concern about substances. Their approach is one of harm reduction and they will also talk about how drugs can be used to control women and what women need to be careful and be aware of.
Walsall Youth Arts has worked in partnership with South Health Authority Action Zone to produce drug information. A project with BME groups about substance use and tobacco use especially within the South Asian community produced a video and training pack to spark discussion about drugs and in particular cannabis and crack. | | Staff Profile | | I full time co-ordinator, 1 development officer, 1 qualified youth and arts worker, 1 administrator. Project work is delivered by free lancers. Walsall Youth Arts is governed by a board of voluntary directors. | | Linked Organisations | | Walsall Youth Art has links with Walsall YOT, the SAFE project (a mobile outreach project for women working in the commercial sex industry in and around Walsall), Street Teams (working with vulnerable young people working in prostitution), Local Authority, Community Arts Team, Social Services and Walsall Youth Service. |
|
|
