Interested practitioners can now read about how labour market integration with Social Art works in three brochures - and apply it themselves: The results of the European project have been practically prepared in the form of a collection of tools in five different languages and are now available for Download.
In the Erasmus+ project "JobAct Europe - Social Inclusion by Social Arts", eight European partners worked on the dissemination of the Social Arts approach in Italy, France, Hungary and Germany. The toolset resulting from the project consists of three interrelated parts that introduce interested people to the method and enable practitioners to apply Social Art themselves. The sfs researchers Kerstin Guhlemann and Christine Best provided scientific support for the project during its duration from 2017-2019 and played a key role in shaping the toolset.
The Job Act method is an innovative method to help people in need overcome their difficult situations and find their way back in the labour market and society. In this first part of the Toolset, we set a foundation for the adaption of social art as an education principle. The first crucial step is understanding the principle of Social Art. Second, the scientific view, based on approaches of empowerment, is presented and contrasted with our practical view of Social Art, to enable practitioners to understand the principle in depth and apply it. The central parameters for Social Art are also described: space, time and provocation. We describe how this principle can be used to empower persons in need and give an overview about the JobActÒ method that was developed by Projektfabrik Witten and follows this aim with great success. After working through this chapter, readers shall be able to a) understand the principle and b) adapt it for their individual purposes in working with disadvantaged people.
To successfully work with the JobAct principle, trainers need specific competencies and knowledge. Thus, the aim of the second part of the Toolset is to provide the crucial target group of practitioners who want to use the principle with the required skills:
1. Qualification requirements of the social artists: Practitioners who want to conduct theater projects should be able to handle difficult situations and empower people with various problems. Besides, they also need a deep understanding of art and its potentials.
2. Frame conditions: To ensure success of adapting the principle the framework has to be considered carefully. Therefore, this part provides information about the main potential obstacles and solutions to overcome them.
3. Trouble shooting: Because the approach doesn’t provide a fixed method, but techniques and skills to adapt it to specific purposes, it is possible that the users will face unexpected problems on his way. Therefore, this part shows how to solve them.
The third part with its own toolset is the heart of our project results and provides the reader with practical exercises in social art, recommendations on what to consider when working with different target groups. It starts with hints of how to get different groups of participants to open up to theatre methods. To enable a holistic effect of social art, we have developed a special system that reflects the respective effects of the exercises on the users, based on the experiences during the project. To enable broad suability, every exercise comes with an overview of their requirements, aims and restrictions. After working through this part of the Toolset, the readers should be able to conduct theatre projects with disadvantaged persons and adapt the approach to their specific purposes.
The toolset in all five languages can be found here.
For audio-visual support of the Toolset and for a better understanding of our project results we have created a short film that show the principle in action. The film sheds light on our project and its results from different perspectives and gives viewers an impressive idea of how social art works in practice in its various adaptions in the different countries. You can find it here.