Co-production, engagement, and inclusion questions
Co-production: Please tell us more about how children or young people will be involved in the planning and/or the delivery of your activity (max. 300 words)
Please be specific about the different roles that children and young people will have on the project. This could include things like:
- consulting with children and/or young people about what’s important to them, and this consultation shaping how your project ‘works’ and what it focuses on
- ‘Play testing’ or R&Ding your project with children and/or young people
- children and/or young people’s creative outputs being showcased through the project – for example, a project that supports young people to put on a theatre show, dance performance, or concert; to produce books, records, radio shows or podcasts; or to have their artwork publicly exhibited.
- young people (aged 16-to-25) being employed on the project as staff members or freelancers
- young people sitting on interview and/or commissioning panels to help make key decisions about your project
We don’t have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to co-production, and there are lots of different ways children and/or young people can be involved in the planning and delivery of your activity. However, we would like you to be specific about what approach your project will be taking. If possible at this stage, it would also be good if you can name specific groups you’re hoping to work with, or to be as clear as you can about the practical steps you will take to enable children and young people to get actively involved in the project.
Access and inclusion: Please tell us about how you have planned to embed inclusivity into your activity proposal. This should include some of the practical actions you will take to help different people access and engage with your activity, and to remove barriers to participation (max. 350 words)
The panel are keen to know more about your understanding of, and response to, the different needs that your expected participants and audience members might have.
These might include needs relating to protected characteristics (age; disability; religion or belief; race; sex; gender reassignment; sexual orientation; marriage or civil partnership; being pregnant or on maternity leave).
They might also include other needs, such as being a young carer; being care experienced; being a refugee or asylum seeker; being homeless or at risk of homelessness; being a victim of or at risk of abuse; being in or at risk of being in the youth justice system; financial need; and others.
The panel are keen to see a clear and thoughtful consideration of the range of people who might engage with your activity, the barriers they might have to participation, and the clear, practical steps you will take to removing or reducing those barriers. It is really helpful if you can give specific examples of the actions you will take to try and help different people fully participate.
You could use this question to tell us things like:
- how you have consulted on or co-produced your activity with the people you are trying to reach
- how you will collaborate with other groups or organisations to support your project’s inclusion (for example, community groups that support or represent your target audience)
- the diversity of the team organising the activity (e.g., your staff, freelancers and/or volunteers), and how this supports the inclusivity of your project
- practical steps you have taken to increasing the accessibility of your project (which could range from producing high-quality access guides, to booking BSL interpreters, to providing travel bursaries, to making ear defenders, stim toys or sensory spaces available
- to many, many more possibilities!) - ways you would like to further develop your approach to access and inclusion, including resources (including training) you would like to access
Atmosphere: In up to five words or short phrases, please tell us what type of atmosphere you hope your activity will create.
Here you can give us the “feel” of your activity. Words the Youth Programming Panel have suggested you might use here include (but are very much not limited to!): calm; relaxing; inspiring; exciting; fun; welcoming; busy; jaw-dropping; unusual; vibrant; thrilling; one-of-a-kind; comforting; friendly. We hope this will give us a sense of your vision for your activity, and what it will feel like for a participant or audience member.
Audience engagement: How many people do you hope to reach with your activity?
It might be helpful to divide this number into ‘active participants’ (this would cover the number of people you expect to directly participate in things like creative workshops, performances, or sports events, as well as the young people involved in co-producing your activity) and ‘audience members’ (the number of people watching or visiting the festival, exhibition, installation, performance, or sports event you’re planning).
We know that some activities may only reach one of these audience segments (for example, you might be running a workshop programme that reaches active participants, but no audience members), and that’s fine!
Volunteering: do you anticipate that any volunteers will be involved in development and/or delivery of your activity? If so, how many do you estimate will be involved?
It is fine if your project doesn’t include volunteers (you won’t be “marked down” if it doesn’t!) – but if it does, we’d like to know!
Our Programme Coordinator, Sarah Williams, supports and coordinate volunteers involved with our activities. If you’d like any help from Sarah to recruit, train or support volunteers as part of your project, please let us know under the ‘Do you need any further support from the Children’s Capital of Culture team to deliver your idea?’ question.