Creative experiences with long-lasting impact

Member blog

2 Jun 2025

CEO of Impact Arts, Fiona Doring, discusses the different ways that creative experiences can positively impact children and young people throughout their lives.

Impact Arts is running an urgent appeal for Outdoor Creative Play, its free summer programme for children in Govan facing poverty and hardship.

To find out more, visit their website.

Impact Arts has developed a ‘life journey through the arts’ framework which means that we offer a range of creative projects and experiences for children and young people at different stages of their lives.

Our work includes one-to-one art therapy for primary aged children who are struggling with a range of life events and difficult emotions and need support with developing coping strategies and confidence.
For older children, we have small group projects that are designed to use a creative approach to confidence building for school non-attenders, aimed at successfully re-engaging them with education.
And for young people who have left formal education, we deliver a range of accredited employability projects that aim to remove barriers while developing core employability skills and securing onward progressions.
Aside from these areas of work, we deliver bespoke projects such as Project Drag which works with LGBTQ+ young people and explores identity and the history of Drag.

Community connections built from creative experiences

By using creative engagement to achieve our impact, we build self-expression, opportunities to have a voice and community connections into all of our delivery.

Taking part in arts activities is therapeutic and above all else it’s fun, so young people want to participate and remain engaged. Most of our work is delivered over multiple days and multiple weeks as it takes time to achieve meaningful and long-lasting impact.

Much of our impact is built from the trusted relationships that young people develop with our talented team of artists and art therapists and the wraparound support that we put in place which ensures we work closely with a range of partners to offer holistic support.

Art for everyone

We are always at pains to say that our projects are for everyone! You do not need to be skilled at an art form to take part as everyone has the ability to tap into their creative side in some way. Our artists are skilled at encouraging even the most reluctant to have a go and to find an area that is of interest to them.

Every day, we are excited to see just how creative young people are when they are given the space, encouragement and materials to play, to get messy and to have fun exploring their creativity!

Bringing creative arts to deprived communities in Govan

We’re planning to deliver a free 5-week summer programme of Outdoor Creative Play in Elder Park, for up to 60 children from the Govan area of Glasgow. Govan is one of Scotland’s more deprived communities and nearly 40% of children there are living with the effects of poverty. The programme will be led by experienced artists who are skilled in encouraging children to take part in a wide range of creative outdoor activities, from imaginative role playing to building sculptures and dens from found objects. We will also provide free meals to ensure children are well fuelled for getting active in the park!

We are grateful to have received funding from Glasgow City Council towards this project and are now fundraising for the remaining costs which will help to ensure the project is properly resourced and the children can have the best possible experience.

Getting children exploring their local green spaces

The long summer holidays can be a challenge for many families; in terms of the financial pressures of providing activities for children, ensuring children can safely spend time outdoors and trying to break the cycle of relying on electronic devices.

We hope that our Outdoor Creative Play project will encourage children to let loose with their imaginations and realise there is huge potential for play within their local green spaces. By providing nutritious meals, we want healthy living to be at the heart of the project so that not only are children being encouraged to stay active but they are encouraged to eat healthily too.

We anticipate new friendships being formed too as this project will bring children together from a number of local primary schools and hopefully some of those friendships and the activities they have learned will carry on beyond the summer holidays.