The Arts Council and partners launched a major new £1.55 million initiative aimed at creating, developing and sustaining arts programmes for children and young people throughout Northern Ireland.

Creative Youth Partnerships (CYP) is to provide more opportunities for children and young people to participate in the arts within the formal education sector, the non-formal sector and in the context of community and voluntary groups and organisations. CYP has been developed over the last year by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure, the Department of Education and the Education & Library Boards.

They are supported and advised by a regional consortium including, among others, representatives of artists, arts organisations, youth organisations, FE colleges and the Education & Training Inspectorate.

The Arts Council has committed up to £500,000 of its National Lottery funds and up to £750,000 of its resources from DCAL. The Department of Education has reinforced its commitment to the vision of the scheme, providing £300,000. Speaking at the launch in the Odyssey W5 Atrium in the company of 200 guests,

Arts Council Chair Rosemary Kelly hailed the scheme as “a template for the future – not only in the breadth of its support base, but also in the real working partnerships between agencies which had helped bring it about”. A main aim of the scheme is to ensure that as many children and young people as possible have the opportunity to participate in programmes of creative arts activities, in contexts of their own choosing, and across all art forms. This means developing the creative arts infrastructure, at both local and regional levels, in order to address the needs of children and young people, artists/arts organisations and teachers/youth workers involved in creative arts. “The contribution of artists and arts organisations in supporting the Northern Ireland Schools’ and Youth Service curricula and other models of youth work practice needs to be expanded and deepened so that creative arts becomes an integral element in learning and personal and social development,” Ms Kelly concluded.

Also speaking at the launch were Dr Aideen McGinley, Permanent Secretary, Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure and Gerry McGinn, Permanent Secretary, Department of Education. Five new CYP Development Officers, employed in each of the Action Zones (Education & Library Boards), have been employed to facilitate the programmes. A CYP web site database of programmes and activities links youth organisations to short term projects with artists and arts organisations. These programmes enable youth organisations, schools and colleges to select individual artists and professional arts organisations to deliver a combination of pre-prepared and individually-tailored arts activities.