Call 24 - post-COVID renewal? We need to be radical.
- Eona Craig
- Aug 27, 2020
- 1 min read
In these extraordinary times so many of the experiences that have been integral to children’s resilience and well-being have come through arts and creativity.
Rainbows in windows, group singing in our streets, chalk pictures on pavements, ribbons tied to fences, craft, dancing, creative play – these small, grass-root expressions that brought joy, communicated powerful feelings and enabled connection with family, friends and others in the community show how the arts and creativity are an essential part of our humanity and essential for building communities where children can flourish.
Sadly, this pandemic has magnified the fact that not every child lives in an environment where their innate creativity and imaginations can be nurtured and inspired.
That’s why we are revisiting our partner Starcatchers’ original call from 2018, asking the Scottish Government and Scotland’s local authorities to act now, with urgency and ambition, to ensure arts and creativity are at the heart of every child’s life.
Read the full call here.
I’m glad you’re pushing back on the idea that creativity is just “enrichment” when it’s actually part of how kids process stress and make meaning. The pandemic examples were so communal, but a lot of families were isolated even before COVID, so I’m interested in what it looks like to rebuild that sense of shared making in a normal week. Weird comparison, but sometimes tools that lower the threshold for “trying something” can change habits—kind of like how https://stylelooklab.com nudges people to experiment with personal style instead of feeling they need to already know what they’re doing. What kinds of low-barrier creative routines do you think schools could adopt without needing specialist staff every time?
The examples you list (chalk drawings, ribbons, street singing) feel like proof that kids don’t need “perfect” art spaces—they need permission, materials, and adults who value it. What worries me is how quickly those small community rituals get written off as a temporary lockdown thing, instead of something we can intentionally design into everyday life. Slight aside: I’ve seen people use this site to spin up quick visuals when they’re short on supplies, which makes me think access doesn’t always have to mean expensive gear. I’d love to know what you think is the most realistic first step for local authorities: funding, training, or making time in the school week?
That line about the pandemic magnifying unequal home environments hits hard—because the kids who needed creative outlets most often had the least access to materials, space, or calm. I’m curious whether “radical” here means ring-fencing funding, or actually redesigning services so arts orgs are treated like partners alongside health and education. Slight tangent: I’ve noticed the same shift in other areas where people build shared directories to lower the barrier to discovery—kind of like https://hrefgo.com does for its corner of the internet. The big question is how you keep momentum once the immediate crisis feeling fades.
I like that you’re framing creativity as infrastructure for resilience, not a “nice extra.” It also makes me wonder how much of the barrier is practical time—parents juggling shifts, schools trying to cram everything in—so kids only get the arts if someone has spare capacity. I’ve even caught myself doing the same with learning: I’ll speed up talks to fit them in, using something like playback speed time calculator, and it’s a reminder that time pressure shapes what we think is “optional.” What would a realistic minimum entitlement to arts look like across different local authorities?
The bit that lands for me is the equity issue: during lockdown, the “creative community” was everywhere, but only if you had space, time, and an adult who wasn’t in survival mode. Putting arts at the heart of every child’s life feels less like an optional enrichment and more like a public health move. Randomly, when I’m trying to decompress, I end up doing something mindless like the blockblast puzzle game for a few minutes, and it’s a reminder that small creative/strategic acts can genuinely regulate stress. So I’m with you on urgency—but how do you stop this becoming another short-term initiative that disappears when budgets tighten?