Summary
Artlink’s Socialites provided respite for carers of young people with complex needs in Midlothian through creative placements around unique skills like animation and music. Through strategic alliances with key supports, we generated sustained involvement for the young person and their peers.
What The Socialites did
The project delivered 17 creative placements for young people with multiple and complex needs to provide respite for 42 carers identified by social work and carers supports organisations as experiencing extreme levels of stress.
The activity sought to provide short breaks, but also to remove barriers to regular respite by developing capacity of local resources to include young people to lead more independent, meaningful social lives outside of home. The project centred on partnership work with potential longer term supports, building a template for use by others. This project worked because we worked strategically with existing knowledge and support and removing the barriers which prevent their son or daughter’s access to opportunity, and in doing so facilitated their own respite, which is far better than providing respite alone.
For example, we provided a book of ideas for sensory activity in a church hall on Sunday afternoons for someone who can’t access a day centre in partnership with a care provider to allow dad a break from caring.
For someone whose extreme social anxiety stopped him going to school, we ran animation workshops in school which increased his attendance ten fold. We then fundraised with local libraries to create his own youth club on a Friday night with specialist autism support. This allowed mum time to spend with her other children and take a break.
For someone whose mother hadn’t been out in two years, we created a sensory space at home so his care team could confidently engage him whilst she went to sing at a local folk music session.
This project aimed to involve 15 young people but reached 27.
This project aimed to provide respite for 23 carers but benefited 42.
This work continues to this day, through joint working and relationships built around the young person and their family.
What Artlink Edinburgh and Lothians has learned
We cannot underestimate the power of the knowledge within families to know what's right for their child.
We enjoyed being able to generate in some cases ten times more hours of respite for a family by working in partnership with teams, this also allowed greater confidence in teams to open up community involvement for those they support.
We have been naturally led to new resources we could not have foreseen at the start of the project, for example library funding for a youth club.
How Artlink Edinburgh and Lothians has benefitted from the funding
We have contributed strategically to the learning disability day services review and the autism strategy as a result of understanding the respite needs of families.
We were commissioned by Midlothian council to deliver parent led activity for the autism strategy and sourced RS Macdonald funding to bring lived experience to implement part of the autism strategy.
We have published our approach on the website artlinksocialites.blog where some of the people and parents were invited to lead workshops for the government's Scottish Autism Strategy Conference in March 2018 in Edinburgh.
Project Outcomes
Outcome
15 children with complex needs will have experienced new people, places and activity that’s been created uniquely around their key skills and interests.
15 people will have connections to activity beyond our involvement.
15 people will have enjoyed doing something they are good at
Results
27 children with complex needs experienced new people, places and activity created uniquely around their key skills and interests.
27 people will have connections to activity beyond our involvement by enhancing the capacity of community organisations such as the library service, church hall, indoor football hall, gymnastics centre and college of art to include young people with complex needs.
27 people enjoyed doing something they are good at and have avenues to progress that skill in the future.
Case study
An educational psychologist introduced us to a S1 student with acute social anxiety who was only leaving his home for 3 hours a week to attend school. Mum has two younger siblings and could not take a break due to the complexity of her eldest son’s support needs. His interests in animation and model building allowed us a starting point to develop activity based on story creation through Lego and stop frame animation. We worked in school to allow mum more time to herself, and her son a bridge back to learning. His school participation has increased ten fold. We worked with Barnardos Intensive Behaviour Supprt Team and Midlothian libraries to fundraise from the Scottish Library Innovation Fund and successfully fundraised for a year long youth club for three of his peers supported in his learning support base. Better Breaks has initiated ten times more respite for his mum as he now attends a weekly Friday night club in a local library.
Outcome
23 carers will agree that the skills of their child have been nurtured through practical, developmental respite.
23 carers will feel confident that their child has opportunities to progress their interests than before.
23 carers will tell us that’s it's improved their situation and/or wellbeing
Results
42 carers agreed that the skills of their child have been nurtured through practical, developmental respite.
42 carers felt confident that their child has opportunities to progress their interests than before.
42 told us that’s it's improved their situation and/or wellbeing
Case study
Social work introduced us to someone who has a fascination with pulling electrical cables that prevented his safety in his local day centre. His mother, a single parent hadn’t had an evening out for over two years, and couldn’t pursue her passion for folk music as he became too anxious without her. Her knowledge of her son’s sensory interests formed the basis of a project to support new staff to be able to support him without her. Initially, we provided weekly sessions for her son with staff, and brought musicians to play with her at home. The artist converted his room into a sensory space with projectors, speakers and objects of interest. We found two community venues he could access for sensory activity, and mum was able to finally get out to a regular folk night, in the knowledge her son was happy to remain at home without her. This approach has generated longer lasting opportunity for her to rebuild a social life, by strengthening existing supports to allow her regular time away. She describes this as her ‘life saver’, that it protected her from crisis and nervous exhaustion.
Outcome
23 carers will have time to do something just for them during the hours of this resource. It’s important we are flexible – so if a few hours fortnightly doesn’t give enough time, we can adapt to ensure their life outside of caring can be developed (for example, having a whole day a month to go out).
Results
42 carers had time to choose what they do with the short break created by this project. This created the opportunity for carers to go to work, spend time with their other children, attend live music, sing with a folk band or do the food shopping without the complexity of taking their child who hates the lights in the supermarket. For others this generated a wealth of ideas and invested in care teams to increase the capacity and resilience of care teams to provide ongoing quality support for their son or daughter.
Case study
Weekly one to one Illustration workshop for someone who attends school for only two hours a week who had lost all peer friendships because of social anxiety. Mum,who has her own business couldn’t work regular hours as she couldn’t rely on her school involvement allowing her the option of 9-5 employment. Workshops took place in a local art studio during the day, so her mum could continue to develop her business. Social work introduced us to another isolated young person who loved drawing who was the same age, and the two seemed to enjoy each other’s company. This work continues from investment from Chidlren and Family’s social work department and individual self directed support contribution.
Outcome
23 carers will feel better supported as a carer as a result of the groundwork and bespoke opportunities for their child to open up longer term opportunity.
23 carers will feel their child has increased opportunity to progress their skills and interests.
Results
42 carers felt better supported as a carer as a result of the groundwork and bespoke opportunities for their child to open up longer term opportunity because of strategic partnership work with existing community supports and specialist care providers. we worked with 4 care providers, libraries, 4 high schools, a church, a gymnastic centre, Edinburgh University, a sports provider, two residential support providers, an NHS care team, an outreach education team and a music rehearsal studio.
42 carers felt their child has increased opportunity to progress their skills and interests.
Case study
We were introduced to someone whose interest in sound was more important than most, as he is blind, and has autism. Other than school, his interests were so unique that the family could not find community opportunity that fitted what he was looking for, so the family had no respite on weekends. We delivered fortnightly Saturday workshops with a digital composer at Edinburgh College of Art who shares sound recording technology and hi spec speakers to allow him to create his own soundscapes. They have developed a bespoke recording devise using the latest ‘Bela’ technology by designing something he can use to record and edit sound without the need for support. This has allowed his parents to spend time with his younger siblings, and says he's a happy person when he comes back in from his sound workshop.
Outcome
15 children with complex needs will have accessed mainstream and leisure activity created uniquely around their key skills and interests.
15 people will have informed their own community of interest and those organisations have been supported to practically include them. This builds longevity of ac
Results
27 children with complex needs accessed mainstream and leisure activity created uniquely around their key skills and interests.
27 children informed their own community of interest and those organisations have been supported to practically include them. This builds longevity of access.
27 young people and their carers have shaped what is available to others, by contributing their skills and knowledge to shape local provision. This project has created a new landscape of opportunity in the form of books, small creative groups, a mentoring support, a library based youth club and bespoke sensory activity for longer term benefits for others, and increased respite for carers.
Case study
An educational psychologist introduced us to a S1 student with acute social anxiety who was only leaving his home for 3 hours a week to attend school. Mum has two younger siblings and couldn't work or take a break due to the complexity of her eldest son’s support needs. His interests in animation and model building allowed us a starting point to develop activity based on story creation through Lego and stop frame animation. We worked in school to allow mum more time to herself, and her son a bridge back to learning. His school participation has increased ten fold. We worked with Barnardos Intensive Behaviour Supprt Team and Midlothian libraries to fundraise from the Scottish Library Innovation Fund and successfully fundraised for a year long youth club for three of his peers supported in his learning support base. Better Breaks has initiated ten times more respite for his mum as he now attends a weekly Friday night club in a local library.