AMA provides training development and co-ordination, provides information on training courses and other key training, provides mentoring and tutoring for artists and other key professionals working with the arts across the areas of social inclusion/exclusion.

The Training Observatory, 2009-2011
The Training Observatory is a web-based information network of CPD and training opportunities for the range of professionals who work with the arts with children and young people in volatile and challenging contexts.

Specifically it provides:

• Information on training and CPD courses and opportunities for practitioners across the key sectors and across the key regions of England, as well as Eire, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
• Information on training providers for Training programme managers and practitioners
• An Information request system for practitioners and training programme managers on specific training and CPD needs

The site currently provides information on over 30 training providers and has an accessible archive of over 80 courses that have run since October 2008. The website is updated every 3 months, but if you have information you would like to add, you can email us via the Contact section of the site. Follow this link to find out more: http://www.thetrainingobservatory.org.uk/home/

Training Development
The Training Observatory, 2007
Following the PAL colloquium residential weekend held in Bore Place, Kent in June 2006 (see below), The Training Observatory was established in 2007. Its remit is to develop a specific CPD and training network of standards and core competencies for professionals working with the Arts with children and young people in volatile and challenging situations, across the key social inclusion sectors. The Training Observatory consists of a national consortium of training providers, practitioners and programme managers who have come together to co-ordinate the standards of effective practice for those involved in the delivery of professional arts programmes for volatile and challenging young people, by ensuring that they have the appropriate skills and core competencies.

The Training Observatory will provide a web-based independent information and guidance network, enabling artists and other key professionals to:

• plan their professional development for this specific area of practice
• develop and maintain professional standards that are understood and accepted by commissioners of services across the key social inclusion sectors of education, health, crime and regeneration.

The Training Observatory is directed by Angus McLewin in association with PAL Labs of Learning and supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Creative Partnerships.

PAL- Colloquium residential, Bore Place, Kent, June 2006
AMA worked with PAL (Performing Arts Labs) to convene a two-day residential colloquium at Bore Place in Kent, in June 2006. The colloquium focused on the continuing professional development (CPD) and training needs of artists and other key professionals working with volatile and challenging Children and Young People
The delegates were split broadly between arts training providers and key professionals from the national agencies with an interest in the development of artists and those who work with children and young people exhibiting volatile and challenging behaviour. They provided a cross-section of perspectives and experience and, as importantly, created a vibrant and pertinent mix of people who brought an openness and incisiveness to the issues of this specialist area. Led by Angus McLewin the colloquium began the process of:

• Identifying and sharing features of best and effective practice in this specialist area
• Mapping the existing and developing training provision across the Voluntary and Community and statutory sectors
• Initiating a Training and CPD consortium.

Creative Partnerships Kent – Creativity in Practice, July 2005
Working with more challenging young people in education settings.

This training session for artists and educators, provided a brief introduction to the principles behind appropriate strategies for working creatively with challenging young people and, with young people in challenging situations, the roles we all take and the behaviours we encounter. The session involved active participation throughout and included strong language from the start!

Course 1 – the ‘How to run a Workshop’ workshops
This course explores and explains the key elements of fundamental workshop and facilitation skills needed to successfully work with any artform across the range contexts for artists wanting to work with the participatory arts. Each course is tailor-made to fit artforms and participants needs (minimum numbers –10 participants)

Course 2 – The challenges of working with the arts with vulnerable and volatile groups
AMA offers a range of short or in-depth courses for artists and other professionals working with the arts across the range of social inclusion contexts, both formal and informal. All courses explore and identify the principles behind working creatively with the challenges presented by many vulnerable and volatile group of participants, and then develops appropriate strategies for the safe and effective delivery of arts-based projects.

Trainer profile
Having failed spectacularly as a conventional classroom teacher, Angus McLewin worked on street and community projects in the Latimer Road area of Notting Hill and then went on to work as community artist with a wide range of groups across the areas of informal education, disability, mental health and criminal justice.

The fundamental workshops skills courses were originally developed in 1991 in response to artists emerging from degree courses who were discovering the opportunities to work in a range of social contexts. From 1999, with colleague Pauline Gladstone, they developed the National Training Consortium for Arts and Criminal Justice, which subsequently delivered 22 courses for over 330 professionals during the period from 2001-05 and developed high standards of delivery with a pool of 18 trainers.