“What if rather than criticise the poor and how they carry their burden, we stood back in awe that they can carry it at all? What if we realised that we are all connected to each other? What if we held each other the way we’d like to be held ourselves?"
Our Board member Charlotte Armitage has collaborated with the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) on a new digital production called ‘Holding/Holding On’, as part of its ‘Care in Contemporary Scotland – A Creative Enquiry’ programme. The film is available to watch now as part of #CareExperiencedWeek and can be watched here.
NTS commissioned the piece in 2021 from playwright Nicola McCartney, who collaborated with care experienced adults and young people, community collaborators like Charlotte Armitage and sector professionals. The result was this - an example of exploring and giving voice to authentic narratives around Scotland’s care system. The context for Nicola’s creative enquiry follows on from the Independent Care Review published in 2020 and at its centre, The Promise - a commitment to implement change to ensure that all children grow up ‘loved, safe and respected.’
As part of the creative process, Nicola, who brings many years of experience as a foster carer, met with young people and professionals from across the care system and listened to their stories. She gathered stories in online sessions with social workers, carers, Children’s Panel members, Independent Care Review contributors and care-experienced adults and young people to explore experiences of living and working in the care system. Nicola worked with participants to help them take control of their narratives and through one-to-one collaboration helped to give voice to their authentic stories.
Working with Kenneth Murray (writer, consultant, campaigner) Charlotte Armitage (campaigner, blogger) and Murdoch Rodgers (producer, director, writer), Nicola used these conversations as the basis for developing a new script and this work-in-progress filmed reading. At the core of the creative response are the stories from care experienced young people.
In a series of thought-provoking scenes and interventions Holding/Holding On interrogates how society treats those in care, those who are care experienced and the experience of the carers. It highlights the language used to define them; society’s fascination with media tropes; the entanglement of care with class and poverty and most significantly, the role that care plays in the care system. It challenges our perceptions and asks important questions about the future.
Nicola McCartney says: “‘Holding/ Holding On’, gives different perspectives on how we look after our most vulnerable children and where we might go in future. The filmed reading of our work-in-progress puts forward ideas about what’s not working, celebrates some of what is and I hope asks some big questions about what each of us needs to do to really make Scotland ‘the best place in the world to grow up’”.