We are delighted to be partnering with The Reading Agency for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge “Marvellous Makers”.
Thank you for your interest in Create. We are the UK’s leading charity empowering lives, reducing isolation and enhancing wellbeing through the creative arts.
Please read this page to learn more about how we work with partner organisations (community partners) before contacting Create regarding a project (see form at bottom of page).
Our professional artists run creative arts projects with children and adults facing challenges in their lives. They are given a chance to express themselves, build skills, meet other people and nurture their wellbeing through the creative arts.
The eight key groups of participants we work with are:
- Disabled children and adults
- Young psychiatric hospital patients
- Young and adult carers
- Vulnerable older people, including those with dementia
- Young and adult prisoners
- Schoolchildren in areas of deprivation
- Children looked after / leaving care
- Marginalised children and adults (including homeless adults, young refugees, survivors of modern slavery)
At Create, we run our award-winning creative arts projects with disadvantaged and marginalised children and adults by partnering with local services, organisations and other charities. Headquartered in London, with a hub in Manchester, we are a national charity that champions local priorities. We deliver projects across the UK both in-venue and online.
We develop and deliver each project in close collaboration with a community partner that has specialist knowledge of its local area and the participants it exists to serve. This ensures that every project meets local need and is carefully tailored to community partners’ unique objectives and the participants’ interests and preferences.

Our team builds a close relationship with each community partner, listening to what it wants to achieve and then designing a bespoke programme that meets its needs. We then select the most suitable professional artist(s) from our pool, covering 21 different artforms (see below), to deliver the project, supported by one of our Project Managers.
To ensure participants’ pastoral care, safeguarding and support, and provide detailed feedback to our team, we ask for at least one member of community partner staff to attend and support the project in venue or online. They need to be in every workshop throughout the project. Many staff report developing new skills and ideas from our team, which they then build on beyond the project. Each project delivers a set of agreed outcomes, which are agreed at the planning stage. These include: connecting participants to reduce isolation; enhancing wellbeing and confidence; and developing artform (eg: dance), creative and social skills.
ARTFORMS
Currently, subject to artist availability and location, we are able to deliver the following artforms: animation, ceramics, circus, collage, dance/movement, drama, filmmaking, jewellery making, mosaic, mural, music, painting, photography, printmaking, puppet making, radio drama, sculpture, spoken word, textiles, visual art and writing.
REQUIREMENTS
- One project is a minimum of six half days or three full days.
This minimum ensures we are meeting our core aims and outcomes (ie developing confidence, creative thinking, teamwork skills, reducing isolation, feeling connected to others, etc.)
A half day workshop is anywhere between 2 – 3.5 hours. - 10-15 vulnerable people from one of Create’s eight groups to take part in each workshop.
A core objective is for participants to develop relationships, helping to reduce isolation, so we aim to have the same cohort of participants throughout a project. - Community partners are asked to provide a suitable (warm, safe, accessible) workshop venue for in-venue projects.
- Community partners are asked to provide at least one member of service support staff to attend all workshops for pastoral care and safeguarding, building relationships with participants, managing any behaviour issues, and providing us with feedback. All staff must have an advanced DBS check.
- All staff and participants present at workshops are asked to complete a feedback questionnaire at the end of each workshop series to enable us to evaluate the programme against the intended outcomes.
Contact form
Fill out this form and someone from Create will be in touch to discuss running a creative arts project with you.
The 2024 Summer Reading Challenge is delivered by The Reading Agency in partnership with Create
