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From Workforce Development Manager to Darlington’s version of Postman Pat, Martin Webster from Darlington Council has taken on a variety of roles when it comes to Creative Life Story Work. Here, he shares an insight into putting this new approach in place.
When children and young people are the main character in their own story, they can understand, feel and be part of the decisions that are made on their behalf. Here in Darlington we have been working closely with Blue Cabin, community artists and regional partners on innovative and creative approaches to support children and young people on their Creative Life Story Work journey…
…but the process isn’t always easy!
There have been a number of key things we’ve had to do in the background to make the project happen…all of this background work is rooted in exciting stuff like:
Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself…my name is Martin Webster and I’m the Workforce Development Manager for the People Group in Darlington. That swanky title basically means that I manage the training and development of staff, trainees, students and partners across the Children’s and Adults arena.
My role in the Creative Life Story Work roll-out has been about supporting the implementation of Creative Life Story Work in Darlington by helping to facilitate the training and development side of things.
During lockdown I was also acting as ‘postal worker’ too, as I collected loads of amazing artist resources in wonderful present-shaped boxes for children and young people, and tried to make sure that they were delivered to staff on time so that they could share them with the children and young people they work with. Kind of a cross between Postman Pat, Santa and Batman (I only added Batman because he’s awesome!).
To make sure that Creative Life Story Work landed well in Darlington, we worked with the project group to develop and host a series of training and communication sessions for staff, carers, families and partners. These were mainly delivered by Professor Richard Rose (who is inspirational!), colleagues from Blue Cabin (who are fantastic!) and the artists themselves (who are as weird and wonderful as you’d expect!).
We also helped to design and deliver sessions called ‘Critical Friend Meetings’ for key staff to help plan the direction of the project from a Darlington perspective. This helped us to ensure that we have buy in from all parties, and that staff in Darlington know what they are supporting and why.
We are only part way through our journey here in Darlington. We’ve recently had a full Ofsted ILACS inspection too and the results have been amazing. Children’s Services in Darlington were rated as ‘Good’ with ‘The experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers’ section rated as ‘Outstanding’. This puts us in a strong position to push forwards and continue to achieve as much as possible with the children, young people and families in Darlington. Working together with Blue Cabin and all of the partners involved will absolutely support and enable positive outcomes…which is ultimately what we all want for the people we work with.
If you are interested in finding out more about working with children, young people, adults and families in Darlington, feel free to have a look on our ‘Developing Darlington Care Collective’ section of Darlington Xtra.
Thanks for reading, Martin.
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