Inclusion: Exploring home and homelessness

Deirdre Enright, Creative Youth Co-Ordinator

Kerry Local Creative Youth Partnership (Kerry LCYP) is committed to supporting creativity amongst seldom-heard young people in youth settings. In partnership with Novas, the homeless charity, Kerry LCYP supported a project exploring the therapeutic benefits of expression. Mindful that children may not understand their homelessness or have the tools to express how it feels. The overall aim was to see that bringing children together with the same experiences would allow them to feel less alone.

Artist Jeannine Storan and the staff at Novas worked with the group over many months. The medium the group chose to work through was visual art, including drawing, painting, and sculpture.

The group’s creative journey resulted in a small but powerful exhibition titled ‘Inclusionexploring home and homelessness’ at Kerry County Museum in September 2022. The process sought to hear the children voice their opinions in exploring a theme such as’ home’. They were unified by a central experience-the desire to have a home. There were six core artworks in the final show. Clay head puppets represented strength in unity; paper mâché masks represented the faces we showed the world at different times. An exercise in mindfulness threw up the simple comforts of home in the form of clay-based pots and plates. House shapes made from plaster represented the different shapes of a home and how every home can have its quirks. A mixed media framed piece, which everyone worked on, portrayed a utopian town where house designs were imaginative and different but happily located side by side. A soundscape accompanied the show, which featured the children at work, chatting, joking, at play, planning and questioning each other.

The show was featured in a Radio Kerry podcast and broadcast. It was reproduced at the Novas Annual Meeting in Limerick, where Peter Burke, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, visited the show. The stand-out moment was knowing the children could visit the show in Tralee. See their work, hear their voices and see how much other children enjoyed their exhibition. A total of 1,608 visitors came to Kerry County Museum while the show was there. The hope is that the message about inclusion and homeless young people echoes in many hearts as a result.

Youth Work Enhancing the Lives of Kerry’s Young People

The Youth Development Office at Kerry Education and Training Board (Kerry ETB) is where youth work and a range of youth-related services are centralised. These services range from broadbased universal supports to targeted programmes for specific groups of young people. Throughout 2022, young people were supported in dynamic and creative ways to develop their potential and explore their interests, whether through volunteerled youth clubs or staff-led programmes delivered by youth service organisations.

Two fascinating new developments in the county in 2022 were the establishment of new targeted services in Kerry under the UBU - Your Place, Your Space scheme. These projects are located in rural North Kerry, delivered by Kerry Diocesan Youth Service (KDYS) and West Iveragh, delivered by Foróige Youth Service. The vision of this scheme is that all young people are enabled to realise their maximum potential by respecting their rights and hearing their voices. While protecting and supporting them as they transition from childhood to adulthood. These projects will offer a wide range of out-of-school activities. Helping young people to explore their passions and find new interests, as well as develop essential life skills such as teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.

An excellent example of this work was the threeday sailing course delivered during the summer by KDYS in partnership with Sailing into Wellness, the aptly named sea-based experiential learning programme. The programme was very well received by the young people who participated in it with the benefits including greater communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills.