Children in Scotland

Access All Arts Fund

Unlock Your Creative Potential!

The Access All Arts Fund is an exciting project to help support children and young people, aged 11-25 and who live in Scotland, access creative arts opportunities and support wellbeing.

We believe the arts (things like drawing and painting, making music, creative writing and acting) are for everyone. Creative activities like these are great fun and they can help people express themselves and support them to feel good.

But we know many young people face barriers to art and creativity, including disability, poverty, and poor mental health. The Access All Arts Fund has been designed to help overcome these barriers through funding children and young people's access to art and creativity.

This fund has been developed by a group of children and young people who have experienced their own barriers to the arts. This fund was developed over summer and autumn 2022.

How can I apply?

Thank you for your interest in the Access All Arts Fund. The fund has now closed for 2022. Thank you to everyone who took the time to apply, we understand that takes a lot of time and effort.

We are aiming to make our final decisions on applications in January and will let applicants know if they were successful by the end of January 2023. If you have any questions about your application, please contact Dana at dvreeswijk@childreninscotland.org.uk.

Unfortunately we are unable to receive applications after the deadline has passed.

History of the Access All Arts Fund

In 2021, Children in Scotland supported a group of children and young people to design the Access All Arts Fund.

The fund was created as part of Creative Scotland’s Nurturing Talent Fund: New Routes programme to support more children and young people with additional support needs or a disability to apply for arts-related funding to explore their creative passions.

The fund was open between 11 August - 13 September 2021 and received 235 applications from children and young people aged between 11 - 26 years old. In November 2021, Children in Scotland distributed £68,000 to children and young people across Scotland. The funded projects included a broad range of activities including visual art, music, film and TV, and creative writing.

Please click here to read the final project report

The report includes key learning from the project as well as art and testimonials from children and young people who received funding. The report also includes recommendations for widening opportunities for children and young people to access the arts.

Children in Scotland would like to thank the young design panel (Anna, Gaëlle, Isaac and Ryan), for their hard work and commitment in delivering year one of the fund.

To find out more about the work contact David Mackay, dmackay@childreninscotland.org.uk