This research aimed to assess the current knowledge base regarding careexperienced children’s and young people’s engagement with the arts, and to explore the views of facilitators, young people, and their carers involved in the arts-based programme at the Wales Millennium Centre.
Objective 1: Collate and report relevant data and literature.
Objective 2: Conduct an in-depth qualitative research study with programme facilitators, care-experienced young people, and their foster families to provide insight into their experience of being involved with the arts-based programme, and their opinions on what could be done to improve the model and encourage engagement with the arts more widely.
The research study was guided by the following central research questions:
1. What is the current knowledge base around arts-based engagement and care-experienced children and young people?
2. How do foster carers nurture creativity in young people?
3. What cultural forms are valued by care-experienced young people and foster carers and how do they conceptualise value?
4. What enables care-experienced young people to take part in artsbased activities?
5. What are the challenges and issues for foster carers in accessing and sustaining relationships with the arts and cultural education?
6. What changes can arts-based organisations make to encourage and sustain relationships with care-experienced young people and their foster families?
