Hello and welcome to the Spring edition of Artswork’s Professional Development Newsletter. In this edition we will update you on our bespoke training offer, discuss the Prevent duty and hear from a recent attendee of our Youth Arts Management course.

Our comprehensive training programme has been designed to meet all your needs in your work with young people. Courses taking place next year cover topics including mentoring, behavior management, child protection and safeguarding. A full list of courses now on sale can be found on the Training & Events page of our website.

We are sending you this newsletter as you have previously attended one of our training courses, or indicated an interest in our professional develoment programme. If you no longer wish to hear about upcoming training courses for arts and cultural professionals, please unsubscribe.

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Our six day Youth Arts Management course is uniquely desigend to equip professionals with everything they need to run a successful youth arts project, from inception to evaluation. Our next YAM course takes place in Southampton from 17 May 2018. More info.

Previous course attendee Clare Hankinson, from Fabrica, reflects on her experience:

“Taking place over three months at Cockpit Arts, London, it was a chance to take time out of the day-to-day duties at Fabrica, and concentrate on this more strategic approach. Over this time, we covered planning and budgeting, marketing, fundraising and evaluation. The course also became an incredibly supportive network of peers who are working across the arts and with a broad range of young audiences. That in itself was brilliant and we have kept in touch – I hope maybe I will partner with some of these new contacts in the future."

We have designed our new one day Working Together with Prevent course to take the fear out of the Prevent agenda, and help you begin to apply it to your own policies and practice. Later this year, we will be delivering this course in both Gateshead and London.

But what is the Prevent duty, and why is it important that those in the arts and cultural sector undertake training? 

Prevent is part of the government’s counter terrorism strategy, designed to provide an introduction to risks of radicalisation and the roles involved in supporting those at risk. It is recommended that all organisations working to support children and young people undertake Prevent training, and there is a free e-learning training package available on the government website.

Despite the free training offered by the government, many organisations working with the arts, cultural and heritage sectors have expressed confusion around how to implement Prevent within their settings. Our sector works with children and young people in a wide range of contexts, and understanding which steps needs to be taken to ensure compliance, report concerns and share the British Values at the heart of Prevent isn’t straightforward. It is everyone’s responsibility to protect young people from exploitation and radicalization – but how can we build confidence in our sectors’ ability to form part of the solution?

Illustration: Zoom Rockman, from Creativity and Life Chances Conference zine | Download here