Summer Arts Colleges

Summer Arts Colleges are intensive educational projects designed for young people on Detention and Training Orders (DTOs) and Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes (ISSPs). They re-engage these young people in education, training and employment through the provision of vibrant arts experiences.

Summer Arts Colleges were originally launched five years ago as part of the Youth Justice Board and Arts Council England's strategic partnership. To date, we have run 90 projects on their behalf reaching nearly 900 young people in England and Wales. Young people on Summer Arts Colleges work with a unique combination of artists, literacy and numeracy and youth justice practitioners.

Summer Arts Colleges aim to:

• Increase educational engagement and facilitate transition into mainstream education, training and employment after the programme.
• Provide a structured full-time arts based project combining arts enrichment and arts appreciation activities, and to explore possible routes into employment and careers within the arts.
• Reduce levels of (re)offending among participants during the project and in the following months.
• Work with the arts to improve literacy and numeracy skills and to achieve an accreditation through the Arts Award.