Cool Things Booklet

Cool Things

Cool Things Days Unique, creative experiences for care-experienced children and young people

Cool Things Days

Unique, creative experiences for care-experienced children and young people

Blue Cabin is a charity, based in the North East of England. We support care-experienced children and young people to develop and strengthen relationships with people in their lives through creative activities.

Working in partnership with Local Authorities and Virtual Schools, Blue Cabin can create bespoke creative day(s) that engage care-experienced children and young people and their trusted adults with the local and regional cultural offer in your area, and give them the opportunity to work with highly skilled creative artists. We call these our Cool Things days.

Cool Things days help care-experienced children and young people to:

Improve relationships with the people in their lives

Improve their resilience

Increase their sense of belonging

Increase their sense of pride

Be seen, heard and valued

Develop their love of the arts and creativity

And Cool Things days help Local

Build stronger relationships with the cultural sector

Make positive memories and experiences for careexperienced children and young people in their local

Create a strong sense of place and belonging to the cultural offer in the area, with a lifelong love of the arts

Build and strengthen positive relationships between staff, carers and care-experienced children and young people in a fun and positive environment

Blue Cabin

Our approach

Blue Cabin’s approach is trauma informed. We deliver high-quality arts based programmes, working collaboratively with our partners.

Experience and evidence shows that small groups of children and people, alongside high levels of staffing and support is a key element of that. Good quality materials, resources and environment are also important.

These elements bring the best possible experience and outcomes for children and young people.

Blue Cabin works in collaboration with Local Authorities and commissioning organisations to design and agree the format of your Cool Things day.

We have a team of experienced Associate Artists who facilitate work that is child centred, trauma-informed and underpinned by social pedagogy.

We work with excellent transport and catering providers, ensuring that all safeguarding and risk assessment measures are in place.

We create high quality marketing materials to help promote the event.

And we work with you to gather feedback and measure the impact of your Cool Things day.

Cool Things Days

How does it work?

Cool Things days can happen as a one-off event or a series of events. They can engage children and their trusted adults together, or children and young people on their own.

Cool Things days can be programmed as part of holiday activity or during term time. However you decide to deliver a Cool Things day you will be building and strengthening relationships for all involved.

Cool Things days typically include:

Trips to see age-appropriate live performances in a number of different artforms like theatre, music, dance.

A creative activity, facilitated by a Blue Cabin Associate Artist, linked to the live performance.

High quality resources and materials that children and young people can take home.

Cool Things Days

What creative activities can we offer?

We work across a range of different artforms, including:

Printmaking

Creative writing

Puppetry

Visual arts

Filmmaking

Design

Drama, masks and clowning

Photography

Music

Cool Things Days

Commitment from Local Authorities or commissioning organisation

A Cool Things day works best when there is a main contact chosen within the Local Authority or commissioning organisation.

We will work in partnership with the main contact from the outset. Our approach is collaborative and is informed by regular conversations and meetings.

This person would lead on:

Identifying the age range of participants

Recruitment of participants to the activity (we will provide recruitment information and flyers)

Gathering information about each participant to inform safe and accessible delivery, and sharing appropriate information with the Blue Cabin team

Attending each event alongside the Blue Cabin team and following up with foster carers/carers throughout to keep them informed about the activities.

Cool Things Days

Costs

The costs below are a guide - they would be finalised by having a conversation with the Blue Cabin team. The cost could be lower if you can provide a suitable in-kind venue for delivery or if transport isn’t required.

If you are unable to meet the full cost, please contact us and we may be able to apply for funding to help.

Cool Things day including live performance and creative activities

For up to 15 children, young people (aged 4 to 11) and their supporting adults

£4,250 (with return coach hire, if required, at an additional £400)

Cool Things day including creative activities only

For up to 15 children, young people (aged 4 to 11) and their supporting adults

£4,100 (with return coach hire, if required, at an additional £400)

100% of participants of a recent Cool Things day described it as ‘the best’!

What people have said about Cool Things...

“…(P) enjoyed trying new things and doing the activities together…felt it had developed the communication with carer and young person.”

Gill Etherington Darlington Virtual School

“It was awesome!”

“It was all very exciting, from getting on the coach to coming home again”

If you’d like to find out more about working with Blue Cabin to deliver Cool Things, get in touch by emailing hello@wearebluecabin.com

www.wearebluecabin.com