We live in an ageist society, and often those who suffer the most are our youngest children. What other age has a label as well known and disparaging as the ‘terrible twos’?

Youth Music’s Energiser Fund was designed to address this head on, to spotlight and celebrate the amazing creativity of small children.

Last month in Manchester, the Energiser Fund learning community gathered for two inspiring days of discussion and play workshops – all centred around co-creation with 2-4 year olds. Wonderfully hosted by the historic art gallery The Whitworth, we came away feeling … well, energised, with so many reflections which we wanted to share.  

Centring young children’s voices

The Energiser Fund has a focus on early years creative practice, centring children’s voices, views and lived experience and exploring co-creation and participation. Our Energiser learning community all share this passion and commitment, with a strong ethos and vision surrounding the delivery of their early years projects.

The Learning Community has developed a joint research question ‘What do we learn when exploring co-creation with children aged 2-4, their families, artists, practitioners and communities?’  

What is co-creation?

Co-creation is the term the community chose to broadly describe the work we do that:

• Centres children’s ‘voices’;
• Allows their views, creativity and lived experiences to influence the world around them; and
• Involves children and adults working together collaboratively. 

But what does co-creation really mean, and can we agree a clear definition? We spent some time unpicking this in Manchester. 

We saw some common threads emerge about how to create the conditions for co-creation. These were: 

• Shifting power: Balancing the tension between child-led and adult-led dynamics – removing hierarchy, and letting children lead.  
• Freedom and Safety: Creating spaces where children and families feel safe, relaxed and free to be themselves.
• Providing space and stillness: Recognising that both energetic chaos and calm focus have a space in creative exploration and flow.
• Developing relationships: Grounding ourselves in local communities and taking time to build relationships with children and their adults.
• Time: Building trust over time.
• Vulnerability: Being prepared to be open and share with others. Such as allowing ourselves to play, to try new things, and for adults to be ‘child-like’. When adults feel safe to share their vulnerabilities, we can learn more about each other – what our struggles and challenges are, what we do and don’t like, and how we can best help each other.

The joy of arts organisations is in their diversity, which is what gives this work its strength! So a shared definition of co-creation proved tricky to agree, as the practice may differ and be dynamic across a variety of organisations. 

The challenge for Youth Music will be finding a clear way to describe and articulate this work, so that others can be inspired and supported to start doing co-creation with their early years children. Keep an eye out on this newsletter and our website as we do further work with the Learning Community on this. 

Don’t grow up! What happens when we act like toddlers?

Throughout our time in Manchester we all described, demonstrated and modelled our co-creation practice. We showed one another how we co-create with children, support them to take the lead, and allow their ‘voices’ to come through. 

We got to experience first-hand the important work of 2-4-year-olds – playing and creating as they do.  We played with clay and light, entered an Atelier,  and explored the gallery spaces at Whitworth through Drumming and Dance.

We were invited to explore and create in the same way that children do. We moved through spaces on our hands and knees. We played with giant pieces of corrugated cardboard, and experimented with clay. 

A theme throughout all workshops was allowing children time to create and explore at their pace, and how they want. This often means open-ended activities where we create or move through a space with no instructions, where the adult practitioners follow and build on what we do. 

As well as enabling us to be immersed in each other’s work, these activities emphasised the importance of allowing adults time to play and create. To be able to act like children – who are the real experts at play and creativity. This was liberating. We experienced creative activities and saw the gallery spaces in new ways. 

Modelling co-creation: tools and techniques

When working with and children and their adults, it’s fundamental that we create spaces where both are confident and happy to play and explore. That’s when great co-creation can happen. 

We shared and discussed:

Welcoming people into a space: Making it clear it’s a welcoming space, and saying what’s going to happen. Setting the tone for activities and clarifying what is allowed can put children and families at ease, and allow great co-creation to build. 

Accessible communication: Communicating in a way so everyone feels included. This could be easy-read materials, visual stories, or multilingual resources. Clear communication helps families know they’re in a non-judgemental space where their voices – as well as their children’s – are respected.

Partnership working: For organisations who go into different spaces, there’s often negotiation and buy-in needed from the existing staff, before the co-creation can really start to thrive. Partnerships are vital to this work. If staff have been with a setting for a long time, it can really help win the trust of the community. 

Time and trust: Being creative and playing with others needs trust. But trust doesn’t happen overnight. Long-term, relationship-based programmes are vital. 

Playful materials: Materials make a difference. Carefully chosen materials empower children to create, imagine and lead. For example clay, which is accessible and open-ended. Which offers lots of possibilities. Invitations to play with inviting textures and shapes, as well as being playful in a space, support learning and wellbeing. 

Documentation matters: Documentation helps us reflect, learn and celebrate children’s perspectives through active listening and observing. We shared tangible ways that we capture and share children’s voices. Large scale displays of children’s photography, blown up large on the external walls of a nursery building, makes a child’s perspective unmissable. other techniques such as Floor Books, or minuting children’s board meetings, all help us to capture and show very young children as highly skilled and experts. 

Final reflections

We left the event feeling like we’d been in a creative oasis – a safe, playful space bursting with possibility. As we look to year 2 of the Energiser Fund we want to bring this joy and possibility to others. 

How can we explain co-creation, children’s voices and the importance of play to others? 

How can we offer practical ways those at the start of their co-creation journeys? So they can reap the benefits of listening to, creating with and playing alongside our youngest members of society?

Watch this space for more Energiser Fund activities, learning and adventures that you can take part in.