Our next steps to Creative Futures…
Next Steps has been a Cambridge Community Arts project, since 2018, as part of Building Better Opportunities through Community Connections South. Over the last 5 years the service and team, Christine & Alan, have become a vital and much-loved part of Cambridge Community Arts supporting over 100 people on their journeys into education, training, volunteering and employment. Next Steps has enabled us to provide one to one coaching and support to access training, education, volunteering, and employment opportunities for our community members.
“Really supportive service and just what I needed to progress on my creative journey.” - Marzia, 2021
Responding to the community’s need and building on the experience and strengths of Next Steps we are in the process of redesigning our Next Steps service to become ‘Creative Futures’. We hope to launch Creative Futures at the end of this year to help our communities to develop their creative potential whilst also providing more general employment support.
Creative Futures will provide our community with:
The continuation of one-to-one coaching
A network and mentoring scheme
Closer partnerships with the Creative Industries
Creative Futures Cafés
Support for Creative Practitioners to develop a Creative Profession
We are thankful for our existing partnerships with organisations within the Creative Industries in Cambridge, who are supporting this development…
“Cambridge Junction seeks to provide opportunities for people throughout their lives to develop creative and transferrable skills and routes to employment both at Cambridge Junction and with cultural organisations across the city, regionally and nationally… We are committed to working with Cambridge Community Arts to connect these opportunities with participants in this project, to ensure the benefits of our training and welcoming working conditions can be shared with those who might most benefit from these, and to ongoing work to develop more employment and skills development and training opportunities in the future.” - Matt Burman - AD & CEO of Cambridge Junction
“We have been delighted to work in close partnership with Cambridge Community Arts since the organisation was established. What began as short-term creative arts projects has developed into whole organisational partnership supporting many Cambridge Community Arts learners into their first volunteering and paid work roles at Kettle’s Yard.…We are pleased to support their ambitions for Creative Futures”. - Karen Thomas, Community Manager at Kettles Yard
We hope to have an update on Creative Futures later this year.
Best wishes,