Displaying items by tag: CCET

Many thanks to everyone who voted for our Creating Your Future 2015 project. I’m delighted to say that we were successful in obtaining an award from the Royal Bank of Scotland Skills and Opportunities Fund. NatWest Bank, part of RBS, have volunteered their practical support as which is invaluable and we are very grateful to them and our other volunteers. This is enabling another cohort of unemployed adults to develop the creative thinking skills needed in the current workplace, to use these skills to work out what career they want to pursue and to take the necessary steps to make this a reality. Thanks to your support it’s really helping turn people’s lives around!

The Creativity Centre Educational Trust (CCET) is a UK charity set up by Dr Marilyn Fryer and Caroline Fryer Bolingbroke to widen access to creativity education and development. Creativity in this sense is about enabling people to think and act in more innovative ways so that they can find new or improved ways of dealing with challenges as well as developing the skills to create new opportunities for themselves and others.

The charity is overseen by its Board of Trustees: Sally Bassett (Chair), Dr Richard Perkin, Coll Bell, Alison Milner and Iain Burns. Dr Marilyn Fryer is the charity’s chief executive. Dr M K Raina is the charity’s external advisor, succeeding the late Dr Morris I Stein and Dr E Paul Torrance.

The Charity's Mission

To enable individuals and organisations to develop the creative abilities they need for tackling complex challenges more effectively, for creating and developing opportunities for themselves and others, and benefitting the community as a whole.

 

Our Vision

To be the go-to place for training, facilitation and information about creativity and innovation.

Core values

• Independence
• Collaboration
• Impartiality
• Diversity
• Quality
• Sustainability

What we do

The charity has been working in the area of creativity and human development for over 20 years and has an excellent international reputation for this work. We run a range of community projects in Torbay and Devon as well as our international e-journal, Creativity & Human Development. Our work is published and presented internationally. Locally, we enable people learn creative problem solving and other skills that they can use to overcome the problems and challenges they face such as unemployment, loneliness and social isolation. We also run creativity development workshops for the voluntary and education sectors. We really enjoy working with members of our local community and local colleagues as well as our colleagues overseas.

Our current projects

 

The Creating Your Future Programme

We are currently running the 6th cohort of this popular course, currently funded by the European Social Fund. The aim of the Creating Your Future programme is to enable people (currently women) who wish to return to employment, self-employment or training, to discover what career they would really like to do in the future. They learn a range of creative problem solving skills and strategies they can use to tackle any barriers they face, which will also be valuable to them in their chosen careers. As participants realise just how creative and skilled they are, they grow in self-confidence and self-esteem.

Here are just a few quotes from some of our participants:

'A great course!', 'Fun to do!', 'I’m now thinking of something I never would have thought of before', 'The activities and support have been wonderful'.

 

Some of our previous Creating Your Future participants celebrate completing the programme

The Merry Widows Project

We started this project 5 years ago because we were tired of hearing that the older generation was seen as ‘a problem’ when in fact it’s a great resource of experience and expertise. This project has three aims, to bring together older women to share common interests and skills and to develop new ones, as a friendship group, and as a force for good in the community. To give just one example, one of our participants, a former health visitor who had previously had a stroke, wanted to create a Totnes branch of the charity, Different Strokes, which supports younger stroke survivors, since there was no such resource for miles around. This is now a thriving support group which meets regularly and is going from strength to strength.

National and International Activities

Creativity & Human Development

Running our Creativity & Human Development international ejournal is a key element of the charity’s work. The journal co-founders and editors are Caroline Fryer Bolingbroke, Dr Marilyn Fryer and Venu Dhupa. The aim of this independent, interdisciplinary ejournal is to publish research papers and features on all aspects of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and human development – bringing together these fields of study. It includes work in education, psychology, science and technology, arts and culture, business, and health and well-being. In particular the journal aims to provide:

• A place where individuals and organisations can obtain impartial information on creativity in its widest sense – being creative in one’s life and work
• Access to a plurality of views and perspectives on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship
• Access to both high quality academic research papers and more popular features.

We are particularly keen to include high quality work which is not normally accessible to a wide audience and we welcome material from all disciplines, cultures and countries. The journal includes blind peer-reviewed academic papers, popular features, art works, interviews and book reviews. From time to time, we invite key researchers to guest edit special issues featuring creativity research in their country. And we really welcome readers’ suggestions, comments and questions.

This journal is funded by sponsorship and subscriptions from universities and other organisations. Feature articles, book reviews and interviews are free to view, whilst academic research papers are by subscription only.

Some of our earlier work

Previous examples of the work of charity staff include the UK's first international conference on Creativity & Cultural Diversity. We have also developed learning materials for the Department for Education & Employment (DfEE), undertaken creativity education consultancy for the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA), the National Advisory Committee for Creative & Cultural Education (NACCCE), and many others. Our work has been published and presented internationally - in Eastern & Western Europe (including by the European Commission), in the USA (Torrance Lecture Series), in Japan (Annual Educational Psychology Association Conference) and in Malaysia, in conjunction with the Opening of the Nobel Prize Centennial Exhibition, including keynote panel membership for Forging the Creative Agenda for Malaysia.

Our charity’s work has been supported by a NatWest Skills & Opportunities Fund Award, a Tampon Tax Community Award, Awards for All from the National Lottery Community Fund, an ESF-funded award, and many other awards from Devon Community Foundation, South Devon Foundation, the Arts Council, Torbay Community Grants and Torbay Community Investment Fund. The charity's projects have also been sponsored by the Lloyds Bank Foundation, Creative Scotland, the London Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and various UK universities. Equality in employment is very important to us and we have been glad to participate in a number of relevant projects such as the ESF-funded Bradford Equal, and Disability Enterprise Support in West Yorkshire commissioned by Asian Trades Link (ATL).

 

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For more information about CCET’s work or how you can support it, please contact us.
If you would like to make a donation to support our work we would very much appreciate it. Please note this is not the same as a subscription to the journal which is on this page.

The Creativity Centre Educational Trust is a UK registered charity and non-profit company limited by guarantee.
Registered charity no. 1095342. Registered company no. 4023948.

Registered Office: First Floor, CEF Building, Broomhill Way, Torquay, TQ2 7QN, UK

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Sally started her career as a primary school teacher and quickly became interested in the role creativity can play in children’s learning and development. Moving into the commercial world, Sally worked in sales and marketing for 15 years working in the art and education supplies industry. During this time she continued to build links with the education community working to promote the value of creativity and the arts in the curriculum – through commercial sponsorship and support for a number of organisations working to deliver creative activities in schools, galleries and museums.

She then moved into the public sector and worked for East Midlands Development Agency, one of England’s nine regional development agencies where she developed and managed large scale projects to promote the improvement of skills across the region. Her particular interest has been in promoting the value of enterprise skills, science, technology, engineering and maths skills to young people to help equip them for rewarding careers and roles in society. During this time she was also seconded to Arts Council England to lead their engagement with local authorities and other key regional cultural partners. Sally now works for OPUN, the Architecture Centre for the East Midlands, promoting the arts and creativity as key components of design excellence.

Whilst working for Binney and Smith (Europe) Ltd, makers of Crayola products, Sally came into contact with The Creativity Centre Educational Trust and became a Trustee in 2003. She has continued to work with the Trust drawing on her wide experience of cross-sectorial working to support the organisation and became its Chair in 2019.

Coll Bell is an experienced People and Organisational Development practitioner. He leads the Adults’ Health and Social Care Workforce Development Services in Calderdale. Coll is a passionate communicator and has been involved in supporting and developing people, organisations and communities most of his career and in his capacity as a volunteer in his community. As well as developing social workers and other social care practitioners, Coll also offers experience in leading projects that support young people into employment and economic regeneration in Bradford.

My whole career has involved teaching, working and playing with children, teachers and artists (when treated properly, teachers and artists play just as well as children!). Most of my creations have been of the moment and consequently fleeting and have taken place in the minds and emotions of the participants; consequently, my publications are very few but, hopefully, memories are many. Outcomes and problems solved have been on the face of it in the realms of the imagination but who knows what applications to and effects on real life have been experienced by at least some of the people who have shared in the creating.

More formally, my academic achievements include a degree in English, a PGCE from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Leeds. The PhD involved publishing a critical edition of an original, previously unpublished and unperformed version of a Restoration Comedy – my production of the resulting text was performed at Leeds Polytechnic (claimable as a World Premiere?). I successfully qualified as an OFSTED inspector, registered inspector and trainer.

My research interests include: drama in education and its importance as a learning medium across the curriculum, particularly across the primary age range; the development of creativity in education; active approaches to learning; arts and the under-fives; the arts in the curriculum; language development; children's literature; role play and educational drama in training education; and interpersonal skills training. I have successfully supervised PhD or MPhil students in drama/arts /language/creativity related areas: teachers’ attitudes to creativity; drama and the arts in the primary school; children's literature; children's writing; metalanguage and English as a second language with a group of reception children; art and mathematics with primary children; learning in the primary school through drama in education; visualisation in theatre / performance; arts therapies.

I was organiser and leader of the Leeds Polytechnic Drama in Education Seminars and Arts in Education Seminars for Polytechnic staff, researchers in drama in education and teachers across the region and Conference Co‑ordinator for an Arts Council sponsored national conference on Arts and the Under Fives at West Yorkshire Playhouse. I have been external examiner or consultant in a variety of colleges and universities, particularly in English and drama. More recently I have been Vice Principal of a Musical Theatre College in Leeds. Not least, I have had the privilege of being Chair of the Creativity Centre Educational Trust (CCET).