2017 – 2019
Creative Kin offers creative respite and the space for kinship families to spend time together away from the life’s challenges.
Creative Kin has been good it has given us a chance to bond as a family. We never get the chance when he is at school. I wish there was more of it.
Kinship care families in Moray and Ayrshire explore music, visual art, drama and other creative activities together as part of an artist-led programme designed to help strengthen their relationships and improve wellbeing.
Creative Kin – a two-year pilot project delivered in partnership by Children 1st and Starcatchers, and funded by the Scottish Government’s Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Project Fund – offers creative respite and the space for kinship families to spend time together away from the life’s challenges.
This two-year pilot project delivered in partnership by Children 1st and Starcatchers, and funded by the Scottish Government’s Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Project Fund. It offers creative respite and the space for kinship families to spend time together away from the life’s challenges.
In weekly sessions, lead artists facilitate creative activities informed by the needs, strengths and interests of the group. We have adventured through foam-infested jungles, sub-aquatic worlds with breakdancing mermaids and even outer space. We’ve explored den building, photography, film making, music, drama, puppetry and arts and craft.
Our evaluation has shown that families feel more confident about being creative, at home as well as during the session, and report a positive impact on self-confidence and relationships between carer and child.
Creative Kin draws on learning from other Starcatchers’ projects – our pioneering Creative Skills Programme and Expecting Something for young parents and their babies.Key to the success of the approach is the consistent contact between participants and the lead artists who develop and deliver the programmes with them.The artists are flexible, creative practitioners who have a breadth of skills and expertise that provide innovative experiences in response to the needs and interests of the participants.
The group has helped me to play with my granddaughter, it takes things off my mind when I am here.
Associate Artist
Heather is a theatre director and arts facilitator based in Moray in the North East of Scotland.
Associate Artist
Fraser has been a professional musician and educator for over a decade.
Report on Creative Kin, 2017 - 20 – a two-year pilot project delivered in partnership by Children 1st and Starcatchers.
Creative Kin was a three-year project (2020 – 2023) bringing together artists and kinship families in North Ayrshire. We delivered free, weekly creative play sessions designed to help kids and their carers play, get creative and spend some relaxed time together.
Do you live in, or around, Wester Hailes? Starcatchers Expecting Something offers free creative play sessions for wee ones aged birth to two years old, and their families, led by artists Kerry Cleland and Katy Wilson.
A community engagement programme for Kinship families in North and South Ayrshire.
Children 1st is Scotland’s National Children’s Charity. They help Scotland’s families to put children first, with practical advice and with support in difficult times. And when the worst happens, they support survivors of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic events in childhood, to recover. For more information please visit their website.
https://starcatchers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Matter-Of-Focus-Report-FINAL.pdf
