Purpose:  Articulate uses creativity to help care experienced and other marginalised young people get to wherever they want to go.

​

Mission: We co-design creative solutions using The Articulate Approach to help every individual access the tools they need to build a robust and fulfilled life.

​

Vision:  For a nation in which the talents of all young people can truly shine, in a society where there are no barriers to creative participation.

​

Values:

• We believe in the best

• Everyone has a place at our table

• We stand for dignity and social justice

• Our work is serious, but our culture is playful

• We’re committed to long-term impact and relationships.
   

Why We Do This:

 

Articulate was established in 2017 to make sure children with care experience can have a positive childhood. Our purpose is to improve the lives of the young people by scaffolding their innate curiosity and creativity. We provide direct support through the arts for well-being, to build skills and give a voice and platform to those in and those who have left care and who share our vision, mission, and passion for creativity as a tool for emotional, educational, ecological and economic health.  Our relationship with places and spaces, including the planet, is pivotal to our charitable purpose (see below) and ten-year plan (available on request).

​

The Change We Commit To:

 

We aim to provide equality of opportunity for marginalised citizens by removing barriers to their enjoyment of and participation in the arts, exploring creative potential and engaging with our contemporary cultural landscape. We commit to a culture and society change that sees our young people at the heart and helm of everything we do.  They are our lived experience Creative Changemakers.

 

What We Do:

 

Articulate is a niche and specialist charity that has equality, diversity and inclusion at its core and co-designs services that benefit Scotland’s most vulnerable young people, specifically those who are or have experienced care, homeless, seeking asylum, at risk, or living in poverty in our most challenged communities.  

 

We promote quality and excellence through creative learning and by ensuring diverse and marginalised potential is discovered, nurtured and supported thereby also contributing to the necessary diversification of the creative industries.  

 

How We Do It:

 

Through our access, participation and employability projects, Articulate improves the well-being, achievement, and attainment of young people of all backgrounds. Articulate works with the most skilled participatory and teaching artists in Scotland, across all art-forms and inclusively with children at all ages and stages of their social, educational and emotional development.  We deliver highly creative programmes for children that focus on developing positive outcomes for learning, for life and in preparation for the world of work. 

 

The Articulate Approach:

 

Articulate’s approach focuses on creative habits of mind, where we use arts-based learning as a stepping stone to creativity, a high-value commodity in the workplace of the future.  Our work is:
 

• asset-based, person-centred with rights and relationships at its core

• Social Pedagogy, SEL and creative learning pedagogies in combination

• delivered by teaching artists that are of the highest calibre and where their practice is trauma-informed  

• rooted in robust evidence and research including around the arts and neuroscience

• impact-driven and future-facing with emphasis on quality, authentic co-design and creativity with partners and participants.

In practice this means:

 

• arts education, creative learning and cultural practices, including digital, are prioritised

• 16 industry-wide art-forms are employed to benefit marginalised Scots

• the creative outputs, productions, exhibitions and events, are of industry-standard

• creative voice is nurtured for social, educational and economic improvement 

• young people help us ‘talk the talk’ and ‘walk the walk’ through action research and KE.

​

There are five themes to our work:  1) places and spaces, 2) connectivity, 3) well-being, 4) education, employability and enterprise and 5) Artivism. 

 

Our journey over the next ten years, has the following focus:
 

• the arts and creativity as a connector between culture and care

• awareness and advocacy, including children’s rights to the arts and culture

• child growth and development, including physical and mental well-being being nurtured

• education, skills and workforce development, scaffolding for young people, teachers, social workers, families and artists

• places and spaces, including digital, where the ability to flourish and thrive is cultivated.

​

​