The AIM of SILO is to address issues of adult social exclusion, expounded by lack of basic competencies and lifelong learning opportunities. The OBJECTIVE is to provide pedagogy, to enable our target group of practitioners to engage and support their beneficiaries i.e. socially excluded adults, to achieve validated competencies supported by distance travelled methodology, by engaging in non-formal learning via participatory arts projects. 24.2% of the population (EU27) is at risk of poverty or social exclusion and reduction of this number is one of the five headline targets of Europe 2020. Learning can directly provide the skills, knowledge and qualifications that are important in social and labour market participation. The Council recommendation of 20.12.12 on non-formal/informal learning stated that “the validation of learning outcomes acquired through non-formal learning can play an important role in enhancing employability .. as well as increasing motivation for lifelong learning, particularly in the case of the socio-economically disadvantaged”. SILO will tackle those issues by providing new pedagogy for practitioners to: a. Engage socially excluded adults via participatory art projects. Participatory arts cover the full range of art forms and involve an artist working with at least one other person to take part in a process that the artist has facilitated. Arts Council England found that the ability of participatory arts to “address priorities and provide cost- effective responses to what sometimes seem intractable social problems is not widely acknowledged and often not capitalised upon”. b. Validate the non-formal learning from participatory arts projects to enable achievement towards key competencies and c. Support client progress by the assessment of distance travelled or the “journey of change” No products currently exist which combine all these elements for the benefit of the beneficiary and no pedagogy currently exists which provides comprehensive support to practitioners to develop a participatory arts programme to include all these elements. Our direct target group is practitioners within organisations working with socially excluded adults. These could be practitioners in adult and community learning organisations; arts based organisations; social and health care sector. We will also target managers and policy makers both domestically and within the EU, covering the three types of practitioner detailed above ,and practitioners within other sectors and specifically those working with young people who are NEET and young people at school. During the project: • 100+ practitioners in our direct target group will be involved in focus groups • 120+ of our target group will be involved in launch events • 20+ policy makers will be involved in a policy panel in the UK and a further 20 will be contacted by other methods • 50+ of our target group will be involved in the final conference in the UK along with 5 international participants Beneficiaries of SILO methodology are socially excluded adults and up to 50 beneficiaries will be involved via the participatory arts tests and beneficiary focus groups. We have four IO’s supported by a range of management and administration tasks covering dissemination, management of risk, quality, monitoring and evaluation. Key outputs are listed below: a. Production of a BASELINE AND LITERATURE REVIEW – social exclusion, engagement, participatory arts, non-formal learning, validation, key competencies, distance travelled b. Development of the SILO PEDAGOGY – produced as a series of training modules covering the topic above available via download from the SILO website c. Production of the SILO BEST PRACTICE FILM to support the training modules d. To ensure our products develop to meet real need: • 5 PARTICIPATORY ARTS TESTS with beneficiaries • 5 BENEFICIARY FOCUS GROUPS • 5 PRACTITIONER FOCUS GROUPS e. Production of the SILO POLICY AND RECOMMENDATIONS REPORT and review with the POLICY PANEL. We will LAUNCH SILO in Spain, Poland, Greece and Bulgaria and at a FINAL CONFERENCE in the UK Our methodology includes: • Involvement of all partners during bid development and throughout delivery. • Clarity of partner roles and responsibility. • Allocation of tasks to ensure a balance of work building on expertise, strengths and interests • Production of a detailed work plan supported by a partnership information pack and SLA • Regular monitoring/quality review and feedback, providing opportunities to build a common understanding of quality, key issues, and concerns and of actions that need to be taken. • Establishment of clear communication channels Our long term aim is for the SILO methodology to be recognised and utilised specifically in the partner countries but also within other EU countries and ultimately for socially excluded adults to become engaged and be able to gain the key competencies by involvement in participatory arts projects,
The SILO project was supported by the Erasmus + funding programme, under the Vocational Education and Training scheme: Key Action 2, Cooperation and Innovation for Good Practice, working in accordance with the European Agenda for Adult Learning with an aim to ‘enhance the creativity and innovation of adults and their learning environments.’ 10% of the active population in the EU is currently unemployed & 24.2% at risk of poverty or social exclusion.The aim of SILO was to address issues of adult social exclusion, expounded by lack of basic competencies and lifelong learning opportunities. SILO addressed these issues by designing & developing pedagogy for artists/creative practitioners when engaging beneficiaries in non-formal learning via the delivery of participatory arts projects. By developing and testing a framework supported by distance travelled methodology, SILO enables practitioners to support their beneficiaries to achieve validated adult competences and employability skills through participatory arts. The SILO partnership consisted of 6 organisations formed to create a collective group with complimentary skills and experiences, working with practitioners and beneficiaries across different fields within the private and public sectors, as well as both adult and higher education institutions. The partnership offers robust coverage in terms of sector, geography, culture and expertise and is also well balanced economically, representing countries with both high and low levels of adult long-term unemployment. They are:- SAFE – ‘Supporting Activities for Everyone’ - the lead partner based in Bootle, UK, who have specialised in working with disadvantaged communities to create more than 90 public art works through participatory creative projects. ICC- The Institute of Cultural Capital is a collaboration between Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) and Liverpool University in Liverpool, England and conducts collaborative and interdisciplinary research that critically examines the role and value of cultural interventions in urban environments, from grassroots initiatives to large-scale cultural events and festivals. ABD – Asociacion Bienestar y Desarrollo is based in Barcelona, Spain, working mainly with drug users. They offer a range of recovery/training /employment programmes with particular experience in supporting social Integration via diverse creative programmes. EST is educational centre, based in Wadowice, Poland. They bring experience of running competency-based programmes and experience of art for social change utilising digital arts and theatre. IASIS have extensive experience within the field of mental health, covering engagement and rehabilitation; providing therapeutic, counselling services and psychosocial support.Their beneficiary groups are varied and include people with mental health issues, asylum seekers,immigrants & young offenders. APW – Association to Preserve the Woman are based in Varna, Bulgaria, providing services primarily for women,tackling gender inequality, social exclusion & violence via support programmes covering training, education and integration including art therapy motivational activities. The SILO framework was developed in consultation with circa 100 artist/practitioners across 5 partner countries, in a series of arts tests/beneficiary & practitioner focus groups with differing beneficiaries/art forms, to appraise its feasibility as a tool, and to explore options for improvement. SILO has produced 4 Key intellectual outputs, supported by a range of management and administration tasks covering dissemination, management of risk, quality, monitoring and evaluation: IO1 Research paper - participatory arts, validation of non-formal learning, distance travelled, funding for participatory arts, EU policy, literature/academic review. IO2 Manual/Toolkit - approaches and techniques to develop and run a participatory arts project IO3 Supporting film providing practical illustration and best practice examples IO4 Policy recommendation and guidelines paper - collation and interpretation of information gathered throughout the project. All partners are committed to continue to use and evolve the framework within their organisations and to share with wider groups.Safe leads a consortium of artists/practitioners who are currently using the framework to track the development of 100 young people 16-29 with SEND, through the delivery of work training placements. They are also in consultation with a national non-arts based charity who are interested in using the toolkit in their national impact framework. In addition, SAFE is leading on the creation of an innovative arts-based social prescribing offer, as part of the Well North regional health initiative, the board of which have shown a keen interest in SILO as part of a robust and tangible evaluation system.