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POWERED UP - AN INSIGHT BY THE IN GROUP

CREDIT - LIFEBEAT

Co-create to accumulate

individual sitting in front of a canvas, writing pad or computer screen and creating something that’s beautiful in a personal way. It also helps us to understand each other’s differences and facilitates collaboration. “If it’s witnessed with empathy and kindness by their peers and they feel safe to do so, young people can tell their stories,” Lucy explains. “This allows them to appreciate that everyone has a story. The connection is extraordinary. Everyone has an imagination; everyone can come up with an idea. A two- minute conversation with a colleague, if you’re working well together, will help you come up with a better idea than you would on your own. The imagination to generate an idea, make stuff happen, co-create is very important, and our world needs it.” Lucy and her team are now trying to bring LIFEbeat’s creative methodologies into classrooms. Katrina Hagan, Leadership and Organisational Development Coach and part of our Wellbeing and Engagement

in young people and what we can do to counter this.

committee, wonders how they’re going about this. “It starts with the adults being authentic,” says Lucy – and there’s that word again. “Being comfortable with their own creativity. Training can help teachers become more inspired in themselves and hold deeper level conversations with young people. People are happier when they feel they belong. Schools are places where they could feel this, but it needs a change. The reason I’ve been doing this for 15 years is we get results. It’s about psychological and emotional safety.”

For Lucy, this courageous new venture ticked off the social, psychotherapeutic and creative boxes. “We believe in exploring our inner life through creativity and play,” she says. “And it works. Education’s standard of output is not about creativity, but we believe creativity is crucial to illuminate learning. Young people don’t just need to be taught about climate change and regeneration, for example, but to be inspired to find solutions. Not everyone is a fit for everything. Not everyone is hugely academic – that’s just how we are as human beings. It’s important when working with creativity and play to be conscious of that. If we work with creativity, we’re always learning and our values are enriched all the time.” The mental health narrative is often about the individual, which, Lucy feels, makes it harder for us to recognise and understand other people’s challenges. To her, creativity’s not just an outlet for an

“We believe in the power of digital detox,” says Lucy. “We ask the young people to give in their devices at the start of a session, so they can be fully present, and their connectivity’s not elsewhere. Life in social media can be polarised, for both the positive and negative. Body confidence, eating disorders, self-harm, online bullying, peer pressure; all the normal developmental things young people might go through are exaggerated on social media. It can also be a source of great connectivity and positivity, as well as access to information. There needs to be a pause. The discrepancy between how things look on the outside to how they are is a challenge to how we do things – to our focus on what’s inside. Everyone has an inner world of hopes, feelings, fears, dreams.”

Social media: a double-edged sword?

It’s difficult to have a conversation about young people’s mental health without talking about social media. Kate Graham, Functional Lead, is keen to understand how the growth of social media has contributed to the rising diagnoses of mental health problems