Birmingham arts organisation becomes national Good Practice Centre

Recognition for helping young people engage in creativity.

Despite challenging times for the arts sector, Birmingham based arts organisation Work in Progress is going from strength to strength and has recently been awarded national Good Practice Centre status by the Arts Award team at Trinity College London.

This annual accolade is given to a handful of organisations across the country and is a way of acknowledging their good work supporting children and young people to achieve Arts Awards.

Delivering the Arts Award is a key strand of work for WiP and in 2015 alone we worked with over 130 children and young people aged from 7-25 years, including a large number of children in care, helping them achieve awards from Discover to Gold. At the higher level this counts as points towards university.

Director Ruth Richardson said, “We are delighted to have received this accolade. It means a lot that we have been recognised in this way and by the national Arts Award team.”

Regional Arts Award Manager, Arts Connect’s Helen Frost added, “Work in Progress thoroughly deserves their status as an Arts Award Good Practice Centre. Their innovative way of working with young people to stimulate their creativity and build their leadership qualities is inspirational and a model others can benefit from.”

To celebrate this acknowledgement, the team at WiP will be delivering an Arts Award profile-raising event at Birmingham Library on Saturday 27rd February from 12-3pm. At the event young people will be collecting their awards, there will be speeches, performances and a chance to interview Advisers, children, young people, VIPs including the WiP Arts Award Alumni and the WiP team.

For children and young people inspired to get involved with the Arts Award the WiP team deliverers a FREE Arts Award Club in the Children’s Library at the Library of Birmingham, every Saturday from 3-5pm. All children and young people are welcome to start their Arts Award journey.