This new creative initiative aimed at supporting mental health and emotional wellbeing in secondary schools through student-led creative collaboration.
The project centers on co-creating a series of programs with students and young artists (and potentially athletes); the students can relate to, across various creative disciplines – music, visual art, dance, writing, acting, and more. These artists would share their personal coping strategies and offer activities, prompts, and restorative practices rooted in their creative processes and lived experiences of transitioning from childhood to adolescence.
The overarching goal is to nurture students’ connection to their body, mind, emotions, identity, and sense of belonging. The intention to create a space and encourage students to reflect, share, learn new skills, habits, and tools and build emotional resilience through creativity – while also fostering a sense of community and shared growth.
We aim to explore what students truly value, what they need, and how this initiative could be meaningfully integrated into the school’s vision and structure. Ideally, the project would evolve with the students, adapting to different year groups as they grow and their priorities shift.
The project would unfold in three phases:
1. Co-creation with school staff, students, and artists to design the programs collaboratively.
2. Pilot implementation within selected schools to test and refine the approach.
3. Online access, allowing students to explore topics and creative methods that resonate with their individual needs and preferences.
Depending on each school’s vision and structure, the programs could be integrated into art classes, PSHE, PE, mentor time, or small targeted groups—offering flexibility and alignment with existing wellbeing strategies.
