Blog
Bridge to Creative Goes Online
Thu, 27th May 2021Better Lives Partnership is delighted to have received £7000 funding from the regional arts fund overseen by Dumfries and Galloway Council and DG Unlimited.
The money received is dedicated to Better Lives Partnership’s ‘B2C@Online’ programme which will see professional artists work with the young people at BLP who are participating in our Bridge to Creative Programme (B2C) to create accessible online tutorials in specialist creative practices.
The partnership between the range of talented artists from the region and the young people will create ‘click forward’ tutorials that can be easily accessed by future young people at Better Lives Partnership and offer the ability to try creative activities in their own time and place.
About the new project Carolyn Kennedy, Better Lives Partnership Project Co-ordinator, says: “During the coronavirus pandemic we had to adapt our Bridge to Employment Programme and developed remote learning sessions via Microsoft Teams – this proved invaluable in supporting and keeping in touch with our young people and their families through the lockdown periods. This B2C@Online award to develop and deliver accessible creative practice training enables young people with autism challenges and other disabilities to connect with professional artists and their peers via an online forum to develop their creative practice and support their wellbeing. This portal can be used by our young people to extend their practices but also to include young people who have not previously engaged with us.
At BLP we are happy to support this programme because an online forum designed for and by young people with autism and other disabilities supported by a team of professional artists to build up their creative practice and improve wellbeing does not currently exist in D&G – this is an exciting development for our organisation to be involved with.”
The B2C Project Leader and professional artist Cate Ross said, “We’d like to sincerely thank the funders, DG Unlimited and D&G Council for this award, our creative project is often a lifeline for some of our most isolated and vulnerable young people and developing B2C@Online will help us to reach deeper into the community of people who are challenged by their Autism characteristics and may not be able to participate in group work or travelling to study.”
