About the Training Observatory
Definition of terms
Children and young people
We are using age ranges that reflect the majority of professional arts practice in the field of social inclusion and therefore start from school age (5 years) through to young adulthood (21-25 years).
Working with the arts
The focus is on the participatory arts, where children and young people actively engage in arts processes as part of a developmental journey of engagement, participation, empowerment and skills acquisition.
Volatile and challenging
It is acknowledged that this description can be pejorative, but is used in this context to both accurately describe observed and experienced behaviours and to describe the volatile and challenging situations that children and young people find themselves in and that practitioners are often asked to work in.
Key areas of social inclusion
As this initiative is led by practitioners and providers in certain areas of social inclusion policy, there is a focus on the key areas of education, crime, health and community regeneration, but an acknowledgement of the other important areas such as disability, special needs and the needs of BME groups.
Key professionals
Whist there is a clear focus on arts practitioners, it is acknowledged that a range of other professionals are either involved in directly supporting the delivery of arts provision or may want to develop arts-based approaches and creative structures for dealing with challenging behaviours and working in volatile contexts.