Blooming Minds Club

The Blooming Minds Club is a youth-led artist-supported creative arts hub for young people experiencing mental health difficulties based at Creative Spark Dundalk, with outreach workshops in Drogheda, County Louth.

The aim of Blooming Minds is to engage 13-18 year olds experiencing mental health difficulties from local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), in co-designing and producing a creative arts hub for young people. Participants are meeting to make art of various forms on a regular basis, over a two-year period until September 2025.

The Blooming Minds Club is one of only nine projects selected nationally to receive funding through the Creative Ireland Nurture Fund, a new initiative from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to reach and meet the needs of ‘seldom heard’ young people.

The Club offers an innovative and dynamic creative arts programme including opportunities for participants to learn different creative techniques, whilst making friends and connections in their community.

Using the Lundy Model as a theoretical framework, a small group of Ambassadors meet regularly to share their thoughts and ideas about what kinds of art workshops and artists to engage in the project which is then opened up to the wider service user group to join in.

To date five series of art workshops have been delivered, including mural painting/street art and urban walking tour, signwriting, laser-cut jewellery design, ceramics and screen-printing with embroidery on textiles. The group is now planning for a weeklong summer camp which will provide further workshops in painting, print, fashion, and coding for animation in the Creative Spark FabLab.

Initial feedback is positive across all collaborative partners: young people have shared feelings of pride and surprise at their creative achievements, artists have found the sessions professionally rewarding, CAMHS staff have been grateful for the opportunities to offer something different and creative to their service users, and parents have stated that they are seeing positive changes in their young people in terms of confidence and self-esteem.

Get in touch to register your interest with grainne@creativespark.ie and follow us at @blooming_minds_club on Instagram.

https://creativespark.ie/blooming-minds-club.html

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