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In this episode Naomi talks to Jason Camilleri about the responsibility of safeguarding.
Jason describes how safeguarding is at the forefront of how he approaches his work with young people aged 11-25 at the Wales Millennium Centre. He believes that without it you are at risk of turning young people away from the arts. One of their projects involves employing young people to run a radio station, so there are many layers of safeguarding to be considered.
He talks through practical tools such as carrying out risk assessments, ensuring the physical space is suitable for the young people and ensuring that young people are safeguarded when taken on trips to festivals such as Boomtown. By carrying out detailed documentation, called an Op Order, they anticipate almost every single thing that can happen, and this is continually reviewed and improved.
They also have a safeguarding team with representatives from across every department in the organisation. The team will review any issues that come up and are followed through until completion.
The long term nature of their work means that they often hold relationships with young people where there are safeguarding concerns. They realised that they needed the same level of care and attention as other agencies and have put significant time and resources into thinking about how the organisation can ensure Safeguarding and Wellbeing is embedded in their work. Now they have an officer who is responsible for Safeguarding and Wellbeing in attendance at all sessions with young people. When someone is triggered by something happening in the co-creative process they have a responsible person to discuss it with.
Jason believes that when this responsibility is held effectively there is proper nurture and support for the young people. Conversely he has seen projects in other organisations promise the world but not deliver and this has been upsetting for everyone involved. One of the challenges is around having enough diversity in the team that hold the responsibility so that young people with different protected characteristics have someone they can talk to that they identify with. They have lots of people across the organisation who are trained in Mental Health First Aid and who are up to date with the wider context that young people are facing in the world.
Naomi Alexander is the CEO and Artistic Director of Brighton People's Theatre . Her AHRC funded research Let's Create: Do we know how to? identified 20 qualities, skills and responsibilities that are important for artists leading co-creative practice. The report and illustrations are available here.
Jason Camilleri is the Creative Learning Senior Producer at the Wales Millennium Centre.
Youth Collective at Wales Millennium Centre
#co-creation #theatre #leadership #arts #artist #safeguarding #young people #letscreate #embodied
Creators and Guests
What is Let's Create: Do We Know How To??
A deep dive into the qualities, skills and responsibilities that artists, as leaders of co-created art, embody and practice in their work.
Theatre Critic Lyn Gardner 'wholeheartedly recommends' this podcast :)
Episode 1: Open and Humble Ned Glasier from Company Three
Episode 2: Grounded and Energetic Sita Thomas from Fio
Episode 3: Empathy and Care for Others Tashi Gore from Glass Performance
Episode 4: Adaptable and Flexible Kelly Green
Episode 5: True to Yourself Conrad Murray from Battersea Arts Centre’s Beatbox Academy
Episode 6: Patient Kane Husbands from The Pappy Show
Episode 7: Holding Space Tanushka Marah from ThirdSpace Theatre
Episode 8: Managing Energy Levels Jack Parris from Brighton People’s Theatre
Episode 9: Listening and Communicating Dan Thompson Freelance Artist
Episode 10: Inclusive Language Kane Husbands from The Pappy Show
Episode 11: Art Form Skills Conrad Murray from Battersea Arts Centre’s Beatbox Academy
Episode 12: Facilitation Skills Sarah Blowers from Strike a Light
Episode 13: Safety Kelly Green Freelance Artist Released
Episode 14: Safeguarding Jason Camilleri from Wales Millenium Centre
Episode 15: Being Accountable Sarah Blowers from Strike a Light Released
Episode 16: Rights and Ethics Ned Glasier from Company Three Released
Episode 17: Know your limits and involve other people Jess Thorpe from Glass Performance * Coming soon
Episode 18: To create a structure/purpose Jack Parris from Brighton People’s Theatre * Coming soon
Episode 19: To know an appropriate amount about who you are working with Dan Thompson Freelance Artist * Coming soon
Episode 20: To ensure people have a positive experience Tanushka Marah from ThirdSpace Theatre * Coming soon
Naomi: Welcome to Let's Create: Do We Know How To? My name is Naomi Alexander, I'm the CEO and Artistic Director of Brighton People's Theatre. Last year I got some funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of my CLORE fellowship to do some research into the qualities, skills and responsibilities that artists as leaders hold in making co-creative work. This podcast series explores each of the findings in a little bit more depth with a different artist.
Today, I'm joined by Jason Camilleri, who is the Creative Learning Senior Producer at the Wales Millennium Centre. Jason's been involved in the arts world for over 20 years as a performer, radio presenter and as a facilitator. Welcome Jason.
Jason: Well, thank you, thank you for having me.
Naomi: It's really great to have you here today talking about the responsibility which came up in the which is around safeguarding. Thank you so much for agreeing to chat to me about this really important topic. So the first question is when reflecting on this responsibility can you tell me why you think safeguarding is such an important topic for artists leading co-creative practice?
Jason: Obviously from from my perspective I feel like it's a vital component in the work that we do. For what we do here, it's at the forefront really alongside co-collaboration, co-construction. I think both of those things are really important. I also actually feel that they feed into each other and it's a little bit of understanding what it is that young people want, what young people are looking for and being able to meet young people where they are. So I think it's a vital piece of skill that works hand in hand with that.
I think in relation to co-creative practice I'd say it's important to a, manage expectations is one thing. When you think of safeguarding and young people's well-being, I think we've been on a journey personally where we used to do a lot of kind of light touch satellite kind of projects and programs where we'd go in we'd work with a group a very small kind of period of time, it might even just be an hour workshop a taster workshop or something like that and then we'd move on. And in those kinds of circumstances, the onus of safeguarding and well-being was pretty much on the group leader and less so on the artist I'd say. Obviously, the artist had to think about that within the practice of what they were delivering. But I'd say anything that might already be in the room would have been looked after by the group leader.
And when we started to move from that kind of short light touch way of working into long-term embedded practice, that's when we really realized that safeguarding and well-being has to be at the forefront of what we do it was a learning curve. But I think if you don't put that in place you're really in danger of damaging young people, in danger of turning young people away from the arts. You have to think about that I think before you think about your art form. Because it's no good teaching somebody a skill but not having any of that safeguarding in place, because if you do something wrong or if you go into a space and you're unprepared in that sense, you could actually turn them away from ever wanting to look at that skill ever again.
So I think it's vital. I think in relation to the co-creative side of it, I'd say there's a whole thing that I believe in about managing expectations. I know some people co-created work. They feel as though when they're working with young people, if a young person says yes we want to do this, it's like well that's what the young people want so we're going to do it. I have this belief that you kind of have to nurture support and guide that way of thinking. Because if you just say yes to everything and then what it is that they propose falls down, that could do more damage than good. So I think for me, it's just really thinking about whatever your creative output is, whatever the outcome is that you're looking for, it's about nurturing and supporting and making sure the young people who go on that journey are considered when it comes to safeguarding and well-being, and they feel safe in that space, they feel safe to try, safe to explore, safe to get things wrong. Because for me, it's the process, the process of getting to that outcome or that output, that's the journey for me. And I think that's why I'd say it's important.
Naomi: Amazing. Thank you so much. There's so much to unpack in that. So let's dive in with a bit of a focus on some of the detail around that which would be great to hear about. I'd really love to know what you do or what the organization that you work for does to hold the responsibility of safeguarding. So thinking about real practical detail, because there might be people listening that haven't done this kind of work before, and yeah, so what do you do?
Jason: Myself and the team, we look after all of the programs and projects for young people in Wales Millennium Center. When we say young people we say age between 11 and 25, we have a community team that do work with young people under the age of 11. And the kinds of programs that we do they range from radio station. I'm sitting in the radio. And also we've got a radio program we've got a film and video program, youth hip-hop theatre group as well, beatbox choir, lots of projects. We do a series of creative voice courses which look at the behind the scenes kind of stuff that you can do in theatre.
So yeah, lots of different programs across the board, and in that so it's myself and a team of four other people. Whereas in the radio station, the radio station is probably our most established kind of program. We actually employ young people to run the radio station for us, so in that came a whole set of standards, I guess. We had to look at when it came to safeguarding of young people because now we got young people who are staff and it's the juggle between the two of that. They need that support from us as a team, but they're also running a space and they're responsible for other young people.
Yeah, there's lots of layers in all of the things we have to consider when we think about our work. What we do as an organization, I'd say, the things that we put in place, they range from thinking about what's the art form, what is it that the freelancer or the facilitator might be doing and making sure that we've got risk assessments, you know we manage any kind of or mitigate any kind of risks that might be involved in the actual activity right through to looking at the spaces that we're in and how do we make sure we've got spaces that are welcoming, spaces that are safe, making sure that we've got breakout spaces that young people can go to should they need to get out of the space, making sure they've got permission to leave the room and to go and find a quiet space or to sit out if they need to. So they're the kinds of things we think about when we're in the space.
One of my colleagues implemented something called an Op order, that's what we call it an Op order, and anytime we've got an activity or a trip or something like that, something that's a little less general and just general usage of what we do, and we fill in one of these Op orders. And in that Op order, it basically covers every eventuality that you can possibly think of that could happen when we're doing this activity.
So for example, this kind of came into place because we used to take the radio station, we used to take the mobile radio station to Boomtown Festival. So when we go into Boomtown Festival, we're taking a group of young people to that kind of environment, we really have to be on the ball here. So we brought this op order into place, and it just covered everything from scheduling of the staff, making sure that there were enough staff for enough young people, making sure that we had enough drivers so if any emergency happened we had people who could drive off site, making sure that we knew where the local hospitals were, making sure we knew even down to like where's the nearest dentist and all of these kinds of things that we put in place, if we stay in a hotel or something like that making sure we're aware of the fire evacuation procedures, making sure we know what rooms people are in so if we need to find somebody or if we can't find somebody, all of the kind of things you just have to put in place to really kind of knuckle down and say right, it's all in this document, all of the staff have got this document we've got emergency contact numbers in there for everybody, we've got emergency numbers connected to people back here at Wales Millennium Centre. So everything we could potentially think of is in this document and should anything go wrong, it's all there.
But the document really is about making sure that things don't go wrong, if you know what I mean. So we put the document together, let's get everything in order, let's get all of the information down that we need and mitigate the risks as much as we can in advance but then should anything happen. And the thing is even though we do that we've been out on trips and on visits and at sessions and things have come up that we haven't thought about and then we go then back the next time and we update and we re-evaluate and we change the Op order to make sure that we're always continuing to get better at what we do. So I'd say that's an example of what we do as an organization.
We've also put together a safeguarding team which comprises of people right across the organization. So from myself in creative learning, we've got people from front of house, people from operations, people from marketing community, everybody, a representation right across our organization on this kind of team. And what we do is we review any kind of safeguarding issues that come up, obviously, some safeguarding issues are sensitive so they can only be handled by certain people. But as a team we'll review any issues that come up, we'll make sure that we're operating with best practice or that we're doing the best we can by the person that the issue has been raised. We'll constantly check in to make sure that we're following up; and that if somebody does raise something, that somebody takes the responsibility of seeing that through to completion and we review them every month until something is no longer on the table in a sense or has been completed. So there's some of the things that we've put in place as an organization to think about safeguarding.
We've also been working with a lady called Ndidi recently on well-being and thinking about well-being spaces within the center particularly for young people. We're about to build a whole set of new spaces for young people here and we think that well-being and safeguarding needs to be like integral to those spaces and potentially having a well-being or safeguarding officer on staff who is based in the space with us. So that's one of the things that we're talking about. So yeah, it is really at the forefront of what we're doing.
Naomi: Wow, that's amazing. I mean, it's so much work and such deep thought in every aspect of your work I'm really curious about this new initiative and having a safeguarding or a well-being officer. I'm wondering if you can just say a bit more about the thought process or the experiences maybe that have led you to the conclusion that that's needed?
Jason: Yeah, of course. So I think as I mentioned once we started moving into this kind of long-term embedded work with young people, I think it became apparent with some of the young people we're working with that there were some issues around well-being and safeguarding. Some organizations, because we work with a lot of other youth organizations and they recommend young people to be on our programs. And sometimes the person who we've got contact with on our organization might say just to let you know share the information that this young person so and so, so and so, do you know what I mean, just so you're aware if anything arises, don't hesitate get in touch with us. We've been supporting them for a long time through this situation.
So to begin with, a lot of the young people had external facilitators or mentors that we could quite readily get in touch with and they could come in or they could speak to the young person. But I think that kind of made us realize that the more we work with young people and more young people kind of feel at home here, and the less that we're actually working with other people's young people, and young people are starting to become embedded within our organization that we needed to have that same level of care and attention to young people. So what we did was we started to think about how do we implement that into our work.
And it started really by us on certain events such as Dros Nos, we've got an event called Dros Nos which means overnight in Welsh, which is like a sleepover, so young people, they come and see a performance, they sleep over at Wales Millennium Center, the next day we do a whole series of creative programs and projects in response to the performance that they saw the day before.
Naomi: Wow! That sounds amazing.
Jason: Yeah, it's a great project. We've run it for the past three years, so it's an annual project that we do, But we felt that even though we're asking the group leaders to be responsible for their young people that they bring because they're staying overnight, we felt that each group had to come with a couple of group leaders. We also felt it was important for us to make sure that there was a safeguarding or well-being person on site for the entirety of the event, that if a young person was triggered by something they saw in a performance or when you bring groups of young people together certain conversations can happen certain. If one group doesn't quite know another group thinks, things can happen, and we've come across it in our time. So we just felt it was right to have somebody in place who was identified early on to the young people as this is a person you can go to if there's anything you want to talk about or if anything comes up. You've got your group leaders. You've got this specific well-being person and also the staff from Wales Millennium Centre, if need be.
And I think it was really successful because we had two well-being officers who stayed with us for the entirety and it was really successful, because they were used young people did go to them and talk to them. They did talk about some of the things that were in the performance. They did talk about just some personal things. And it made it really obvious to us that this was something that was quite important to young people. We've got some young people who work with us. They've done one of our programs. And so radio for example, we've got one young person who's done our radio program, and they've never come back to record a radio show, but they come back to the kind of social events that we do because for them that's what it's about. It's about being around other people and connecting with other people. They're not that interested really in being a radio presenter. And it was after a while we recognized this, and we thought well for this young person in particular, it's just about being around other young people. And they've opened up since and just said well, that's what they get from it, they want to connect and they feel it it's a safe space for them to just socialize. And we felt that the more that that happens, the more we have to be able to really support these young people because we are going to come across some well-being and safeguarding situations in that.
So I guess as we started talking about the development of these spaces, radio was kind of the prototype. So the spaces were developed we will include a film, they'll include a black box space for young people, a live lounge, recording studio so all of these spaces are being developed. And we know that in the same way we do with radio we're going to have young people running those spaces for us as well, and we just feel for the well-being and safeguarding of those young people. And the young people that come and use the space having someone on site who has safeguarding well-being at the forefront is going to be vital in just operating those spaces smoothly, I think. So yeah, that's where this come from.
Naomi Amazing. Amazing. I mean it sounds so comprehensive. What happens, do you think, to the co-creative process when the responsibility of safeguarding is held effectively?
Jason: I think as I touched on a little earlier, I think that idea of nurture and support and making sure that a project is achievable because you're not just thinking about the outcome, you're thinking about the well-being and safeguarding of the people as they travel through the process to get to that outcome, and I think for me that's vital. I've been in situations where I've been connected to organizations that have promised the world and haven't delivered it and that's upset young people and it's had an adverse effect. So I think it's about really trying to manage and mitigate that. So you can cope by co-creating it, by its very nature it's getting to that outcome or setting those goals together, so you can try and keep it realistic, if need be. And the young people that we work with can be ambitious, and they can tell us that no, you need to try it like this, and we have faith that we can deliver such and such. And then you just need to meet in that space where you are supporting them to be able to achieve that.
And I feel for me, I think that's that's the main thing: it's that making sure that the journey you take them on is safe and supported.
Naomi: Yeah. And you take that responsibility seriously. What are the challenges with holding the responsibility of safeguarding?
Jason: Not everybody is the same, right. All young people are different. And if we're going to talk about young people from specific protected characteristics, I know some young people who are quite happy to come and speak to me because of my appearance and how I look that might not speak to one of my colleagues. But then there are other young people who would be happier to speak to one of my colleagues rather than speak to me because they relate to them in one way shape or form. So I think having like a single kind of well-being person you run into that issue, you can't have one person that just connects to everybody.
So I think one of the things for us in Wales Millennium Centre, we've got a whole group of mental health first aiders across the organisation have all been trained. So there are a number of people across the organisation that anybody can go to, to talk to. So I think that's one of the challenges and probably one of the ways that you can try and get around that challenge. I also think that particularly for myself working with young people, times change, and I think the issues that young people are facing today are definitely different to the issues I was facing when I was a young person. And I think being able to make sure that whoever is in those positions where you are having to consider safeguarding, they've got their finger on the pulse a little bit and they're aware of the issues that are important to young people and the changing times that young people are facing. So I think that's a challenge is like really being able to stay up to date with where young people are at as well. And being able to have somebody who's able to mentor and coach and support in regards to those issues. So yeah, it's an ever-changing world.
Naomi: Yeah, totally. And like you mentioned earlier, there's a constant process of learning that's going on to stay up to date with everything. What are the risks if you don't hold this responsibility effectively?
Jason: It can just all fall down as, I said. You can really damage young people. You can turn young people away from what it is that you do. Obviously, there's kind of reputational risk and so on and so forth, but I think that's secondary because for me it's about the young person that you're working with. And if you don't uphold it, it can be catastrophic. You know, it can be catastrophic. And I think, if we truly want to diversify the arts and make the arts accessible to all, then creating a space where well-being and safeguarding is at the forefront, it's vital. It's not going to work without it.
And people feel safe in spaces for different reasons. What does it mean when you say a safe space? And I think that comes through collaboration with the people you're working with by understanding what it means for them to be in a safe space. Because what I might think is safe space, yeah you know, it's the safest space for you. They went well, actually, it's not. We've got a space here which we use for workshops and for groups to come in. It's our space, it's great, it's nice, nobody else is able to go in and use it. And there was one group that wanted to use a space, so I took them there, we got a space for you. I took them along and showed them the space and they were like it's a bit too open. My group are not going to feel safe doing a workshop when people can walk past in and out of the door over there. Even though there's distance between the public and this space, they can still see in my space and my group wouldn't be comfortable with that.
So that had to make us think about okay so yeah, what does that mean? It means different things for different groups. For the radio space here, we've had certain groups in where we've got to bring the shutters down because they feel safer when the shutters are down. We've got other groups who don't want the shutters down. So it's really about negotiating and understanding where the group you're working with are at, understanding them culturally, understanding them from the perspective of the generation that they're in and really thinking about the individuals within that group as well.
So there's a lot to decipher, but I think if you get any of those things wrong, then yeah, you're just in danger of people saying well, A, I'm not coming back is probably the lighter end of it; and B, being really kind of scarred by their experience is the other end.
Naomi: Yeah. And it's the damage like you were saying the damage to people to individuals is the thing that we want to avoid at all costs really, isn't it, in making co-creative work. And it is a very real risk. It's come up in most of the podcast episodes that I've recorded so far as people talking about the risk of of real damage to people. And I think that's why safeguarding is obviously so important. But yeah, there's a depth and complexity to your thinking that is really refreshing to hear. And obviously, there's there's also resources that are going into your work there to enable you to really fully implement the safeguarding plans which is really great to hear about as well that it's being I understand taken seriously at the highest levels of the organization.
Jason: That's really refreshing in a sense. Because as I said when we when kind of light touch short-term projects, the safeguarding policy that we have wasn't as as robust and it has had to evolve and change over time. And the organization has completely thrown themselves into making sure that that is robust. Obviously, there's areas of the organization where there's more risk. So myself and my team obviously working directly with young people, the community team working within the community often working with vulnerable adults. And our front of house team come across a lot of issues from public coming in to use and access the theatres but also just from general public who come in and use the space.
So there are certain teams where risks are highlighted more but the whole organization has come together to help mitigate and to think about what those risks are. We've got some great people here as well who have worked in different organizations or in different departments within this organization who are bringing a lot of knowledge into that group and they're really kind of helping us just hammer out all of our policies, all of our processes just to make sure that our customers, our participants are considered and looked after, but also that the staff are protected and looked after as well within the organization.
Naomi: That's so important, isn't it, because it's so often the artists put themselves last and actually it's really important that the artists are looked after and as safe as possible within these processes as well because they're holding a lot.
Jason: Yeah, absolutely. And when you think about the fact that we work a lot of freelancers with the work that we do, we want to make sure that those freelance artists in that space are safe and we're not putting them into a situation that could potentially damage them or they feel that they haven't been prepped or equipped to be able to look after the young people who are in the space and the knock-on effects of that could be terrible.
So it's about protecting everybody at every stage all the way along, and making sure at the end of the day that the art that we're working with gets a chance to really land with new people and that they can move forward within that.
Naomi: That's great. Thank you so much, Jason. Is there anything else you would like to say about this responsibility of safeguarding?
Jason: I would probably say that even though I've touched on a lot of things there and it can seem like overkill sometimes. When we're going through our documents, there are times we're like oh I got to fill out this document, I've got to do this Op order for this trip and it just takes a long time. It's worth every second in a sense because you know that once that thing is done, you've got it. You've put everything in place that you can to make sure that your participants, your artists, your staff are safe. And once you've got that, you just feel like everything's going to be all right in a sense, you know what I mean, and should things come up you can deal with them as as they do.
Naomi: It's like you're on solid ground.
Jason: Yeah, it's better to put in that time and have those processing policies in place even if sometimes they do feel a bit onerous than being in a situation where something happens and you haven't got yourself in the right place to be able to deal with it and that can be even worse for everyone involved. It's been a long journey for us, so this isn't something that's happened overnight, it's been a really long journey for us and for myself. But put in the time and you and the people around you should be safe.
Naomi: Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much for that, Jason. Before you go there's just one last question I'd like to ask you which I've asked every guest on this podcast series. This research isn't intended to be a definitive list, it's just the start of a conversation, and so I'm just curious. When you first took a look at the research report, did you think there was anything missing that for you is really important in your co-creative practice?
Jason: No. Because I think I was just trying to get a handle on what was there and think about how well being kind of fitted into the equation. So I guess for myself, when I read through it, I wasn't reading through it with that in mind, I was reading through it with this conversation in mind. So I will go back to it. And I've known that this is done, I will go back to it and I'll never look through and we can pick up on that conversation that question if you want another time.
Naomi: Yeah, great. Yeah. Like I say, it's the start of a conversation I hope and hopefully this podcast and your input into the conversation will be really useful to people that are listening today. Thank you so much for your time, Jason, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. If you're interested in finding out more about Jason's work, you can follow the links on the website. Thanks, Jason.
Jason: No problem. Thank you very much.