darts uses the arts to break the cycle of failure for young people
Published in 2003, Breaking the Cycle of Failure presents findings from a year spent exploring the impact of arts activity on 'excluded' young people in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). Several years earlier darts established Otherwise Creative - an arts programme working with 14-16 year olds who had been permanently excluded from school because of behavioral problems, young people with mental health problems and young parents.
Whilst working with these young people we began to see the changes that participation in arts activities could have on these young people - their view of themselves, their behaviour and their aspirations. What we wanted to do was look closely at what it was about the arts and our way of delivering them that really did break the cycle of negativity that these young people were trapped in.
Breaking the Cycle of Failure brings alive the terms exclusion, disengaged, disaffected - terms so often used they can begin to lose their true meaning. We tell the true stories of young people who have been damaged, some of them very seriously by powerfully negative experiences.
Next we pulled apart arts activity and itemised the quintessential elements that it contains, hence having the potential to engage, touch and transform people.
We analysed attendance and levels of engagement which naturally leads to an unpicking of our style of working - looking at group size, pupil to adult ratio, behaviour support, skills that artists possessed, different art forms and how changes to any of these can change the impact of the work. We employed lots of different ways of collecting the evidence - from pupils, artists, staff at PRUs and observation before presenting our findings on changes for individuals and the wider implications.
As part of this process we saw patterns of changing behaviour emerging and this led us to create the Engagement Matrix which charts the journey of a young person from disengagement through curiosity, involvement and acceptance to success. Our Matrix has now been adopted nationally by many organisations as a way of measuring the impact of their work - and not just in the arts.