Names have been changed to protect the young person’s identity.
Creative Mentoring was commissioned for Samuel when he was in Year 5. His Designated Teacher had gotten to know Samuel and his interest in music well throughout Samuel’s time at primary school.
Samuel had been living with a foster family, and despite having a lot going on in the background, at school he could be quite withdrawn. The school, serving a diverse, urban community in the Midlands, was using his funding for a range of support, including therapeutic and creative activities. However, when his Designated Teacher became aware of the Creative Mentoring offer, he thought it would be perfect for Samuel and his situation. He saw it as “a bit of a triple whammy” of things that would support Samuel’s personal development: creative outlet, opportunities for self-expression, and a positive role model.
I knew Samuel was creative and liked music – we were using his funding for drumming lessons and other things – but I thought it was important, because of absent role models, for Samuel to have someone who matched his cultural heritage; for him to have a strong positive male role model as I think that’s something he didn’t have in his early life … I don’t think Samuel places a lot of value on school. And that’s ok – not everybody does. But he puts a lot of significance on having a creative outlet … [in] an education system that is narrow in that regard … I wanted him to be able to explore that a little bit more (Designated Teacher)
The Designated Teacher made a referral for Samuel to The Creative Mentoring programme, and the team at TMC matched Samuel to Lee. Lee was a local Creative Mentor, with nearly 15 years’ experience working with care experienced children, a background in community arts and specialism as a dance artist.
Lee and Samuel worked together for around one year, with weekly sessions taking place at Samuel’s school during term time.
Lee knew from the referral that Samuel could be very quiet at times, and so his first session with Samuel began with something “slightly left field” to catch his interest and in which he could “physically get involved with the session not just sat down using words” (Lee). This was an adaptation of how Lee often starts his sessions – allowing space for both verbal and non-verbal communication between Creative Mentor and Creative Mentee. Key to this is how a creative activity facilitates getting to know the Creative Mentee, who they are, their experiences and histories. Lee chooses activities not for the sake of doing the activity, but asking “how can doing this make a connection between something physical and how you are feeling, and what you are thinking” (Lee).
This was the starting point for exploring where to go next. As Lee describes it, he had only a little information about Samuel’s interests and so used the process of exploring this to build-up the relationship which is at the centre of Creative Mentoring:
I didn’t know which direction the work would take. I knew he was into music, so in the first session I integrated him by showing me something he was passionate about: he showed me his drum playing. And we talked about music. Therefore, we had a shared experience: I shared things with him and he shared things with me. This combines into creating a relationship (Lee)
The relationship grew between Samuel and Lee. Samuel describes Lee as fun and noisy, and always making jokes, and as someone who “likes everything”, who could dance and sing. This was “the great thing in it” (Samuel). As well as this, they sometimes just talked about life.
A common feature of the Creative Mentor’s work is supporting the Creative Mentee to express themselves in the sessions, through their choices and preferences. This was the case with Samuel. Lee initially found it helped to bring different activities each week, with multiple, flexible options to suggest, but without a single focus for their work. As the sessions went on, Samuel began “instigating things and making suggestions” (Lee).
Samuel also told us that the activities they did together were things he asked and chose to do. One of these was cooking: something Samuel enjoyed doing. Together Lee and Samuel cooked different meals and did baking in a kitchen space in the school library, as well as outdoors. Samuel remembers enjoying making dishes using some of his favourite foods, such as chicken. Lee could also see that Samuel’s work with food was a creative way to explore his heritage and identity, and wanted to make this possible for Samuel so that he could “be vocal” about something that he had chosen and which mattered to him.
Although Samuel didn’t talk as much about this, Lee felt that the work with Samuel shifted gears when Samuel chose to move their activities from cooking back to music. This returned to work they had already done together in the early stages of their mentoring where Lee was getting to know Samuel using conversations about safe places and the six-part story telling therapeutic tool.
I was facilitating him to create a soundtrack to a story he created … as we already had those experiences [of storytelling], we could get deeper and start to think about the layers (Lee)
This musical storytelling project became their single focus for each week, and this allowed them to deepen their creative work together, and take on some complexity whilst remaining led by Samuel and his story. He later went on to perform this live for his class.
During the time of Lee and Samuel’s Creative Mentoring, Samuel was also in the process of changing placements. In this transitional period, Lee saw part of his role as offering a “through line” for Samuel at a time that he knew Samuel would find difficult. At this time, Lee also offered to adjust the days and timings of his sessions with Samuel so that they could be of most support to him. Although his Designated Teacher felt it was important to keep Lee informed about the different steps in the change of placement, Lee’s focus remained on giving Samuel space to express himself as he chose:
Sometimes it was about us chatting. He would be very comfortable talking, asking questions, wanting to check in on and with you… I knew that the work had to support him personally and socially (Lee)
Change in Creative Mentoring often appears to begin between Creative Mentor and Creative Mentee. In their work together, Lee noticed that Samuel was becoming more self-expressive and assertive in making choices about their time together:
There was a change that instead of him being more passive he would become very, very active about his thinking and what he thought about things. That was a huge change (Lee)
Samuel described enjoying all the time he spent with Lee and their creative endeavours. Lee also observed that they seemed to be a source of pride as well. Samuel and Lee shared their cooking with the other adults in Samuel’s life, and their final session was a performance to Samuel’s class of the storytelling soundtrack they had been working on together. Lee described just what an achievement this was both personally and creatively:
He was so proud of what he was doing he said ‘I want to share this with the rest of my class’. And that’s really wonderful, as I did not think he would have the confidence to do that. Maybe a recording, but to do a live performance, with copious instruments, with backing that was edited. It was something more sophisticated … He did a performance and took questions from his class. He was very shy and very timid, but he did it (Lee)
The Designated Teacher at Samuel’s school has also observed Samuel’s confidence and sense of self-worth growing outside of the Creative Mentoring context. Although he acknowledged that lots of different things contributed to this, he pinpointed the relationships with Lee and the experience of Creative Mentoring as important.
I think Samuel has really benefited from it, having that close relationship and connection is really important. And during that time, he’s grown in confidence … he’s always had the confidence within himself in the class – but I’ve noticed that in him, how he is with others, how he interacts with others … And sometimes that confidence can be misplaced and get him into trouble – but I think it’s important he knows his value in society (Designated Teacher)
Similarly, although many different people were involved in supporting and keeping Samuel safe during his change of placement, “during that transitional period he’s benefitted from having an outlet” (Designated Teacher) in his relationships with Lee. In fact, there is a view that the transition went well and Samuel has coped well with this time of change in his life.
The referral from Samuel’s school recognised that Samuel would benefit from a creative role model, who he could build a relationship with whilst exploring his creativity and his sense of self; something which the ‘institution’ of school couldn’t so easily offer him. His Designated Teacher felt the match with Lee did exactly this: the relationship was with someone who showed Samuel positive possibilities outside of school life, and therefore helped him reconsider his own potential and value:
You’re connecting with someone who is human, fully fledged, part of society… Samuel sees what other people can bring to the table that aren’t necessarily academic (Designated Teacher)
Throughout the sessions, Lee’s approach aimed to build a relationship which allowed Samuel the control to explore and express his own self and passions. This ‘child-centred’ approach is central to Creative Mentoring and seen as key to its success in this case:
I think that was one of the successes of it – and Samuel was very much in control, which is something he needs and can benefit from and allows him to be creative (Designated Teacher)
Samuel and Lee have now finished their Creative Mentoring sessions. Samuel’s team know how much he has enjoyed his sessions but are now considering whether a different kind of provision might be more supportive to him as he moves into secondary school at the end of this year.
Find out more about our award-winning Creative Mentoring service and how it can support your young people through challenging or transitional times.
