Plus One – A Cultural Gateway for care-experienced young people
Plus One, delivered by Derby Theatre with QUAD, Deda and Baby People, is a cultural gateway to welcome Derby City’s care-experienced young people and their families into creative and cultural opportunities. Plus One is embedded into Derby City Council’s approach to supporting care experienced young people both with foster families and in residential care settings. There are several strands to the approach;
Cultural and creative opportunities – Plus One provides members with free access to creative and cultural opportunities offered by partner arts organisations across the city. Plus One is positioned between creative industry and social care services and this has led to Plus One providing space for social care teams to hold outreach events inside cultural spaces for both service user events and service teams to meet. Plus One creatively produces these events enriching opportunity for engagement through creative mentors, who share their skills and talents.
Creative mentoring – young people can be referred to a creative mentor who will support them not only to develop creative skills, but with social, emotional and educational development. Creative mentors are also placed in residential care settings where young people can voluntarily interact with the artist on an ad-hoc basis.
Employability and volunteering – supporting care-experienced young people to access careers in the creative sector.
Performance projects – this offers young people the opportunity to make work that reflects themselves.
Plus One is now also built into the residential social care offer, providing weekly workshops in city care homes and collaborating towards the council’s mission to embed young people’s voices throughout their decision-making processes. This includes creative consultancy in relation to documents received by young people when entering residential care and using creative approaches to provide information that not only resonates with young people, but is also creatively influenced by the voices of those in care.
“Through participating in Plus One I found an incredibly strong sense of community, and belongingness, and the environment provided by Plus One gave me the confidence ultimately, after two years, to gain a bachelor’s degree at the Academy of Contemporary Music – something I had never considered to be a prospect of my future” – Lucy James, Composer and former Plus One member, Social Care Roundtable
All strands are supported by creative arts therapy providers, who support the safety and wellbeing of young participants and volunteers and staff. Plus One was awarded Digital Project of the Year at the 2023 Stage Award for Odyssey, an immersive VR experience that allows the audience to see the reality of transient lives.
“Odyssey was about telling stories that don’t necessarily have to reveal that you are in care or going through some sort of trauma. It is about telling universal stories of home, journey and discovery, with the potential for aspiration at the end of that” – Tom Craig, Plus One, Social Care Roundtable.
