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Blue Cabin has worked in partnership with Darlington Virtual School for several years, delivering creative projects which help care-experienced children and young people have fun, grow in confidence, gain new skills, develop stronger relationships and experience the arts and creativity.
Gill Etherington, education officer for Darlington Virtual School, gives an insight into the benefits she’s seen for children and young people in Darlington.
As a virtual school, our role is not only to think about our children’s education in school but also their enrichment outside of school. We want to make sure our children and young people can achieve to the best of their abilities and to make sure that their voice is heard. And we want to go above and beyond to give them new experiences, show them they can achieve and help them access the arts.
Working with Blue Cabin helps us achieve these aims.
We’ve worked together for several years now and some of the projects and activities we’ve delivered include:
The trips we’ve taken to Theatre Hullabaloo and Darlington Hippodrome give the children an opportunity to experience a show at some of their local venues, which in itself may be a new experience for them.
After watching a show, they take part in a creative activity inspired by the performance, which has been designed by one of Blue Cabin’s associate artists. There are not only creative benefits to these activities but therapeutic benefits as well. The activities are trauma-informed and are a safe way for children and young people to experience new things, see what they can achieve, and build relationships with others.
These projects are a really good way for parents and carers to bond with their children. It provides a safe space for them to do something different together.
For example, a child might have been in the care system and now be back with family but still under a care order. When mum or dad come along to take part alongside the child, I’ve seen it be a very successful way of helping the bonding process.
For me, it’s refreshing to take a step back and spend some quality time with the children, getting to know them better. I get to see their personalities more than I do in meetings. The young people are quite honest in the things they say, especially when they’re creating. They make their feelings known and they have their voice, which is good.
Taking part in these projects also helps me find out what their hopes and aspirations are – especially the older children. We cover this in their personal education plan meetings but hearing them talk about things they want to do while they’re taking part in a creative activity is more natural and conversational. It gives me time to chat with them and ask questions in a relaxed, safe space.
We’ve done two film-making summer schools which each lasted for a few days in the summer holidays. During that time, I saw how taking part let the young people take a step back from all the other things happening in their lives and take time out to be creative. I saw how it helped them develop friendships and bond with each other.
At the end, we invited parents and carers to an event where we screened the film and celebrated the young people’s achievements which was so beneficial for their self esteem. You could see how proud they were of what they’d done and how proud the carers were of their young people.
I also love to see the reactions of children when they see a theatre show for the first time and to watch how they interact with the Blue Cabin artists. A lot of our children and young people are very creative and these opportunities give them a sense of achievement and success.
People always go away happy with the feeling they’ve achieved something.
It’s definitely something worth doing. It gives that extra layer of support for young people and children to be able to interact in groups with each other and with their carers. It’s therapeutic and it develops their relationships with their carers.
It helps us go above and beyond for our children and young people. It adds another dimension to what we can offer, and we wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support of Blue Cabin. They keep us on track and make things happen. They take the burden of planning away.
Working with Blue Cabin has been an eye opener at times, seeing different projects play out and seeing the support that the team and the artists give to us and to the young people. They will tweak things and change plans to support the children. They take into account trauma that they may have experienced. It’s just amazing.
I would recommend Blue Cabin to any virtual school. Working together has been a real asset for us and there are no negatives, it’s all positive.
Thank you Gill for sharing this insight into the work of Darlington Virtual School.
