Applications open for ‘Collective’, an ambitious cultural sector leadership programme
Culture Central x people make it work x Collective is a leadership programme for those traditionally excluded from senior roles in the cultural sector.
This is an invitation for you to join us to explore and support how we make change for ourselves, our peers, the cultural sector and the people and places of the West Midlands.
Collective is the starting point of a three-year programme, that builds on our approach and ambitions for culture in the West Midlands and we are looking for 20 people to learn with and to help shape this first year.
What is ‘Collective’?
Culture Central and people make it work are working together to build a programme, for those traditionally excluded from senior roles within the cultural sector. Collective takes an intersectional approach and aims to avoid working in a deficit model, focusing instead on the structures that limit and exclude.
Here at Culture Central, we want to see change within the cultural sector in the West Midlands. We recognise this happens through a plurality of experiences and a climate of inclusivity which leads to wider dynamism and relevance of the sector.
As a programme, Collective will accumulate and build each year, with the cohort maintaining a relationship with Culture Central to embed, share and support change.
Through this iterative and collaborative programme, we want to understand the factors that are holding people back in the region and make strategies and actions together for change. Collective, alongside Culture Central’s other programmes, activities and networks is integral to our role and commitment in supporting change.
Collective won’t make radical changes overnight but will give participants the tools, mechanisms, and techniques to make change alongside Culture Central.
Who we are
Culture Central convene, challenge and connect to create opportunities through Culture for the people and places of the West Midlands. As part of our work, we are starting something new, that will build on the changes we have been making as an organisation and as a sector to deepen and widen the way that culture works in the region.
We are bringing together the approaches that we have taken and co-created as an organisation, such as Transforming Narratives, More than A Moment, The West Midlands Culture Response Unit, and Convene, Challenge, Connect to support those traditionally excluded from senior roles in the cultural sector.
We are also collaborating with people make it work; an organisation with over 20 years of experience across the ecology of the cultural, voluntary and higher education sectors of the UK.
people make it work helps individuals and teams at all levels of cultural organisations to build leadership skills, strength and resilience, to eliminate individual and structural barriers and, to work together to create the conditions for effective, strategic, systemic change.
What type of person are we looking for?
Someone who is ambitious for culture in the West Midlands and wants to support a shared climate of innovation for the people and places of the region
Traditionally excluded from careers in the cultural sector and under-represented in ‘leadership’ positions in creative and cultural work
Working in the West Midlands, or working with organisations delivering work in the West Midlands
Employee within an organisation with the support and time to be part of this programme
Interested in collective leadership, and wanting to develop an understanding of making change within the West Midlands
Wanting to explore how the cultural sector works ‘behind the scenes’, to enable ways to deconstruct and make the sector a more conducive place for all
Started on their leadership journey or an aspiring and ambitious future sector leader
The characteristics or identities that we welcome applications from include:
people from racialised identities
people that are (d)Deaf, Disabled and/or Neurodiverse
those who are care-experienced*
people from a refugee or disadvantaged migrant community
those from a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller community
people from a working class/low-income background (or if you have identified as such in the past)
We recognise this is not an exhaustive list, and we encourage applications from people that may have faced barriers to working in the cultural sector (this may be because of age, unpaid caring responsibilities, or being LGBTQ+ for example).
*A care-experienced person is defined as anyone who has been, or is currently in care, or is from a looked-after background at any stage in their life, no matter how short, including adopted children who were previously looked-after.
How will the Collective programme work?
Programme leaders
As programme partners, the people make it work team will bring extensive experience in developing and delivering tried and tested, cohort-based, collaborative learning programmes and communities of mutual support which empower and enable individuals to come together to realise the real and lasting transformation they wish to see in themselves, in their organisations and across the sector.
Approach
people make it work create learning programmes that are practice and people focused, approaching leadership transformation from a holistic, non-hierarchical, inclusive perspective, guided by the following set of principles:
Human-centred, developmental, collaborative practice
Building consensus, ownership and agency
Durational, non-transactional engagement
Disruption, momentum and action orientation
Care, inclusion and trust
Parity and equity
Through our approach, we aim to build positive communities of trust based on shared leadership values, ensuring all participants are well-resourced, purposeful, focused and connected. We create holistic frameworks of support that allow leaders to work from a place of action and empowerment to implement their change goals both individually and collectively.
Programme format and structure
The Collective programme will span six months from October 2023 to March 2024. It will consist of six, day-long sessions held at cultural organisations and Culture Central partners across the West Midlands.
Alongside the series of in-person cohort sessions, we will be developing and curating an online hub of tools, materials and resources for open, on-demand access to learning for participants and their organisations.
Through 1:1 leadership progression sessions at the outset of the programme, we will explore the needs and ambitions of each participant and identify individual concrete development goals and strategies for change as they embark on the journey with us. We will reconvene with individuals at the end of the programme to reflect, take stock and identify next steps approaches as we move into year two of the programme.
Based on our action-learning approach, we envisage that participants will maintain progress and momentum through independent work over the course of the programme - testing insights, applying learnings and engaging with other cohort members between the sessions themselves.
Session dates
Session 1 w/c 9th October
Session 2 w/c 6 November
Session 3 w/c 4 December
Session 4 w/c 8 January
Session 5 w/c 29 January
Session 6 w/c 26 February
Content
Programme content will respond to the real, individualised needs of the cohort and be framed around learning that participants want to benefit from.
After recruitment, there will be a co-creation stage to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges and leadership progression priorities of participants in order to shape the content of the curriculum and ensure outcomes are impactful and long-lasting.
The programme will be facilitated by culture sector experts and change-makers who reflect the identities and experiences of the participants; and celebrate and platform individuals in other regions and stages in their careers.
Panellists and speakers will be recruited based on the co-created curriculum - drawing on expertise from across the sector to shine a light on how others have addressed challenges that the cohort might be encountering. This will also include platforming the cohorts’ expertise by inviting participants to be speakers and chairs of session panels and discussions.
All sessions will:
Start with grounding and care
Be framed around leadership progression questions such as ‘What do I want to get to? What’s stopping me? What resource is needed to accelerate my own progression and to make change within my organisation and the sector?’
Include sector panels and discussions
Cover live and applied work
Foster social capital, confidence, skills, self-belief and support of others
Include independent, follow up work to inform the next session
The curriculum content will be defined as part of the co-creation process, but we envisage that we may cover some of the following focus areas:
Tool up: practical skills development
Knowing myself deeply: self-awareness, self-expression, self-confidence and how to operate in stressful conditions
Creative practice development: broadening awareness of cultural practices across art forms, boundaries and borders - cross-sector, cross-cultural, international
Sector understanding: analysis of historic and current working models and practices and how they may be changed individually and collectively
Building resilience: operating in a sector that was not made for us
Influencing and activating change
Inspirational organising: generating confidence, clarity and collective energy to work to create change in that context over time
How to apply
We are happy to receive applications from partnerships or groups of people – please make an individual application but reference this in your application if you are applying with others. You can either nominate yourself or another person to join Collective.
If you require additional support to write your application or would value talking through your experiences to structure them into an application with a member of the Culture Central team, please get in touch with us: info@culturecentral.co.uk
To apply – we are asking people to respond to the following three questions:
Application questions
Tell us about you! Outline your career so far, including any challenges that you have faced, and what you are most proud of to date. (Max 500 words or 5 minutes)
Tell us why you’d like this to be on this programme. We’d like to understand more about what motivated you to apply. (Max 300 words or 2 minutes)
Lastly, why is now the right time for you to be on this programme and how will your organisation support you to take part in it? (Max 300 words or 2 minutes)
Application deadline - 10:00am Wednesday 13th September
Need more time? We know that many people will be interested in this new programme for the region, but are not yet ready to commit to the programme in year one. If you are considering applying to Collective in later years; you can join as a ‘Connective’ for the first year.
Being part of Connective will give you access to all of the learning and content that is created, this content will be exclusively available to those interested and will include opportunities to connect with the Collective as it develops.
Access statement
We aim to facilitate and accommodate all accessibility needs, including but not limited to wheelchair access, hearing loops, quiet rooms, child-care and material support for low-waged participants. Please do let us know below if you have any specific questions, needs or comments and we will do our best to meet them.
Information session
For more information on this opportunity, we will be holding a virtual information briefing at 4pm on Wednesday 6th September 2023. Click here to register for the briefing.
Collective is supported using public funding by Arts Council England and is part of Culture Central’s 2023-26 Investment Principles Support Organisation offer for the West Midlands.