Growing creative confidence – reflections from Create’s Nurturing Talent Programme
How do you learn to lead creative workshops in complex community settings with older people living with dementia, disabled children, young carers and other groups of vulnerable children and adults? For emerging artists on Create’s Nurturing Talent programme, the answer is: by doing, reflecting and growing.
Each year, Nurturing Talent supports six emerging artists to gain hands-on facilitation experience within high-quality arts workshops across a range of community groups. Over the 12 months, participants shadow our experienced professional artists, attend expert-led training sessions and develop the skills they need to co-create inclusive, empowering creative workshops with confidence.
We spoke to Caroline (textiles) and Zhaolin (puppetry and drama), from the 2025/26 cohort, who shared what they’ve learned – and how they’ve grown so far.
Building confidence with new communities
For Caroline, one of the most valuable parts of the programme has been working with participant groups that she hadn’t encountered before and learning to adapt with confidence:
“It gave me the opportunity to grow my confidence in working with different groups.”
Caroline – nurturing talent
“I’ve learnt to trust myself a bit more, that I can handle things that get thrown at [me] in a workshop setting. You never really know what’s going to happen!”
It isn’t just about responding in the moment – Caroline is appreciating seeing how our artists carefully reflect and evolve their plans to meet participants’ needs:
“It’s been really impressive to see how the artists develop their plans and reflect after each stage, to make sure it follows the participants’ interests and allows them the space to create as much as possible.”
Planning with purpose
Zhaolin came to the programme with experience in delivering linear workshops – but through the programme has been introduced to a new approach to developing a project:
“I always saw my workshops like a storyline: we go here, then there. But working with Create’s artists [has] shown me a different way — more like creating different spots on a map, and letting participants draw the lines between them.”
“It’s a whole new way of thinking.”
Zhaolin – nurturing talent
This shift has led to a deeper awareness of creative decision-making and how to centre the participants’ experience in every moment:
“Now I’m thinking about the aims of each step. What’s the outcome? What happens if there’s a different energy in the room? How will my response impact the participants?”
Learning by doing
Both artists have reflected on the nerves of a first session, and how observing and supporting our professional artists has helped them to build their facilitation toolkit.
“There’s always that moment where I feel quite nervous,” said Caroline, “when participants first arrive and don’t know each other. But I’ve learnt so much from seeing how artists create warm, welcoming spaces and build trust.”
Caroline shared: “It’s been such a rewarding experience — not just creatively, but personally too.”
Zhaolin agreed that putting participants first, and designing workshops with space for improvisation, has been one of the programme’s biggest takeaways:
I really enjoy thinking about how to put the participant experience as the priority. That mindset, combined with flexibility, makes a huge difference.
Zhaolin – Nurturing talent
A Platform for progress
The Nurturing Talent programme offers both training and workshop experience, and a springboard for future opportunities. Many past participants have developed the skills and confidence to join our professional artist pool and lead projects themselves.
With a bursary, mentoring and practical development sessions – including safeguarding, and trauma informed practice – the programme is structured to support the participants to build confidence, leadership and facilitation skills across artforms and communities.
