Supporting youth mental health through self-expression
In this podcast, we hear how Derby resident Heather partnered with a local dance crew and, with funding from Allenton Big Local, expanded the dance programme in response to young people’s needs. Dance developed their creativity, self-confidence and allowed them to express their emotions.
Although the dance classes were stopped during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Allenton Big Local continued to support young people’s mental health by allowing them to express themselves through music, poetry, art, spoken word, and makeup. Eventually they created a weekly ‘project lockdown’ session so young people could hang out in a safe space. They went on to publish a book capturing the creative projects, and several young people became Big Local volunteers.
Context
This podcast episode was recorded at Big Local Connects 2021, the annual conference that brought together Big Local partnerships from around England to share their insight and celebrate their progress.
Connects Radio podcast: Supporting youth mental health through self expression
Chris Allen
Joining me now is Heather from Allenton Big Local. For those who don’t know where Allenton is, tell us.
Heather
So it’s in the heart of Derby, very close to the city centre. So yeah, we’re just about two miles outside of the city centre of Derby. So it’s a unique little area. It’s very specific to Allenton Big local and it’s very key in everything that we’ve done for Allenton so…
Chris Allen
And we met a couple of a few years ago. We’re not counting the years, are we? We don’t count lockdown years to start with. We’re not going back that far. Well, we met because it was all around young people, and it was trying to listen to young people and enable them to have their voices heard. And you had a lovely group of dancers there. Tell us about what’s happened over the last few years with them.
Heather
Gosh, so yeah, we yeah, we don’t talk about the years, Chris. But the last time that we were together, we were looking at how we’d heard the voice of the young people in Allenton, and what their needs were really and what they wanted. So they wanted mentoring, they wanted youth work, they wanted activities that they could access. And one of the things that came across loud and clear was that dance is so expensive. But we had a group of girls who were really interested in dancing. But dance classes generally are 10 pounds an hour. And Allenton’s, young people are from a deprived area. Allenton is one of those areas. And so we really looked at putting on some dance classes for them. We were fortunate that we were working with another dance crew who one of the young men who set up the dance crew, Trinity Warriors, was actually from Allenton. So he was really keen and interested in giving something back to the community. So it all started from a brief conversation, “let’s do something together”. And we were fortunate that we could put some money, we could get some money through Allenton Big Local. And put a SLA together – a Service Level Agreement together – that would enhance the dance programme in the area for young people to access. So it started about six years ago. I think we saw each other about four years ago, when we were just doing a recap on what had been achieved so far. And you had the opportunity to meet some of the dancers, and they performed for you.
Chris Allen
And creativity is so important to people expressing themselves, and it’s about confidence, self confidence. And I’m sure their participation led them to sort of really feeling better about themselves.
Heather
Yeah, absolutely. And they, they love to dance. They love to express themselves in that way. And for a lot of the young people that we work with, they’re not very good verbally at expressing it. So they could express their, their emotions through how they danced and that then kind of progressed from…In lockdown, we really felt that our young people had isolated themselves. They were locked in rooms. They had no, no escape from life itself, and we were feeling and getting the feedback from the young people that they were just really struggling. So working with the youth organisations and the National Youth agency, we were allowed to uplift things slightly so that we, that they weren’t necessarily allowed to do dance performances, but they could look at things in a creative way. So we could still open our youth centre in a COVID-friendly environment and make sure that it was all safe around COVID. But that they had the opportunity to express themselves through music, through poetry, through art. We did it through makeup and out of that came what we actually call Project Lockdown. And the girls and boys – because we opened it to a to a wider sense of young people – and that they could come in and they could meet with us on a weekly basis. It was a safe space for them in COVID, in lockdown, out of their homes, where they had the opportunity to really share what they were feeling and how they were coping with lockdown.
Chris Allen
And I think that lockdown impacted on young people much more than with adults and those you know, those of us all “ooh a bit of peace. That’s nice for a while”, but for young people, it was devastating, absolutely devastating, and would impact on them very, very severely.
Heather
It really, really has. And what came out loud and clear through the poetry and the spoken word and just some of the sessions where we sat and just chatted, was the darkness, their mental health, their self harm, their looking to alcohol and just trying to find a different way of coping. And actually, for a lot of young people, they didn’t understand the sadness that they felt. They couldn’t put a label on it. They were lost in a world without the right labels that would go with it.
Chris Allen
They were grieving, but they didn’t know why and didn’t know how.
Heather
And so we spent a lot of time. Every week became what was meant to be an hour session, basically, then started to roll into two hours, three hours, four hours. And we are blessed by amazing staff and volunteers who are just like, “Do you know something, Heather, we don’t mind. They’re safe. They’re sharing. It’s, it’s a positive thing for them to be involved in, and we want this to be their safe space.” If they’ve got nothing else at the moment, they know that every Thursday at Youth Club, at Enthusiasm, they can sit, share, talk and chat, or sit in a corner and just be safe and listen to music and write some poetry and just be in that safe space. And the girls and boys have actually put together dances and poetry and performances, and we’re just in the middle of pulling it all together to make a booklet. We’re fortunate that Marcus, who works alongside us at Allenton Big Local, is a bit of a whiz at putting things together like that, so he’s going to make a book with all their poems in and all their pictures. And the young people are actually going to look at performing their routines and their dances. And actually, I hope Bill doesn’t mind me sharing this, but he was with us last Tuesday. We report back to Allenton Big Local on a quarterly basis. And I said to Bill, “I’m not, I’m not going to read through my report. I’m actually just going to get the girls down to dance and let them speak for me”. And, well, there wasn’t many dry ears, dry eyes in the house.
Chris Allen
He did confess to me actually, he did confess to me that and it’s the way it should be. You know, it is the way that our hearts are moved, and the impact you’re making sounds absolutely spectacular. And look forward to seeing the book coming out. That’ll be good.
Heather
We’re really excited about that. And I guess the beauty of the journey that the young people that you met four or five years ago, three of the girls.
Chris Allen
But we’re not counting.
Heather
We’re not counting. No, not at all Chris. Three of the girls are now our volunteers.
Chris Allen
Brilliant.
Heather
So the beauty of Allenton Big Local, the beauty of Enthusiasm is, is that our young people come into a system where they need the support, they need mentoring. They attach themselves to dance or to football or to whatever that may be. But then they have the opportunity of when they kind of reach a point where it’s not as intensely needed, that they can then volunteer back in and then support more young people like themselves. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s that whole cycle of life for us at Enthusiasm. So the young people that you met and our volunteers, and who knows, maybe the next time I’m talking to you, Chris, one of them will be employed by us. So that’s always the dream.
Chris Allen
Heather. Thank you ever so much for telling us the story and through you, thank you to all the people. To all the people who work with you, because they, well, I know they’re a very committed bunch. And especially thank you to those who were in the group I saw and are now giving back.
Heather
Yeah, definitely. Thanks. Chris.