Scotland UWS COER - Identity and Inter-professional Working

3. The Artefact

The artefact that you are going to consider was generated as part of a research and development project investigating the use of assets based approaches to community participation 'Assets Com'. The artefact in this section is a video produced by a senior member of staff at Centrestage as a result of participating in the project and as a means to develop training materials and approaches for the staff who work at Centrestage.

Eoghann, the senior member of staff running this session is an artist. He uses art to work with the young people who come to Centrestage as a way of building their confidence and enabling them to express themselves creatively. Young people who attend Eoghann’s class are presented with a catalogue of art in the styles of Symbolism and graffiti created by famous artists from all over the world (i.e., Banksy, 2018; Basquiat, 1988; Picaso, 1973). Once the young people had been introduced to the artists' work and browsed through the catalogue, they were set a challenge to produce meaningful works of their own using art. For the young people, this meant using art to depict the different identities each of them has with respect to their: personal identity, family identity, and community identity and the assets or strengths that each identity contains. The work with the young people was successful in that it engaged the young people in a process of positive self discovery and self expression through the medium of visual art.  This process could be equated with the first stage of a motivational interview where the practitioner facilitates a self discovery process, establishes empathy and builds rapport and trust. Project researchers asked Eoghann to adapt the workshop he did with young people for staff development purposes by inviting his staff to carry out a similar exercise.

Centrestage professional development workshop

Please watch this video and think about your responses to the critical questions on page 5.