Sunday, November 1, 2020

Developing a Peer Support Programme: Part Three: Online Creative Practitioner Support Programme

 I've not talked about the Creative Practitioner Support Programme on here in while so catch up with part one and part two first if you like!

Like with everything in 2020 the Creative Practitioner Support programme had to move online due to COVID. For the programme this transition was not too painful and in the end quite rewarding.

The main reason we were able to make this transition quickly was that we already had an online home, our Facebook Page, which allowed us to easily make contact with our attendee. We did not miss a session and went straight online the week of lockdown, letting our attendees know we would be there for their creative outlet needs!

There where changes to our online delivery

  • We went from hosting 2 sessions a month, to a session every week
  • We explored Zoom before Facebook introduced Rooms
  • We were able to extend our offer to those outside of Colchester/the surrounding area

The main difficulties came from the tech (as always!), getting people onto Zoom, Zoom cutting out after 40 minutes and then once we moved to Facebook Rooms the issues of attendees not having Facebook accounts!

As we get use to the 'new normal' (sorry), the Creative Practitioner Support Programme sessions have gone back to twice a month, giving attendees time between session for their practice to grow.

One of the benefits that has comes from online offer has been the ability to grow our community, but also for our community to take more ownership of the Facebook Page. The page, unlike our in-person offer, is active 24/7 and attendees can - and do - post outside of our scheduled sessions. This is great as it allows for creatives to access advice and support whenever they need it and it also allows conversations to carry on over a longer period of time.

It will be exciting to see what happens with the Online Creative Practitioner Support Programme going forward!

If you would like to join us, give the Facebook Page a 'like'.

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