Empowering Young People with Live Illustration

Bridging the gap between professionals and young people, with the power of live visuals.

I teamed up with Buckinghamshire Child Safeguarding Partnership, to co-facilitate and live illustrate discussions with groups of young people. The aim was to learn more about the safeguarding issues facing young people in Buckinghamshire.

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Live Illustration Power!

Live illustrating these discussions served 3 key purposes:

• EMPOWERING young people. What you said is so important, that I am drawing it on this big board! Your voice matters!

  
  

• ACCESSIBILITY to information. These discussions are valuable and insightful, and documenting them in an engaging, visual way creates a useful and enjoyable resource for sharing these ideas.

  Less text and more pictures = SO much more readable!

  
  

• ENGAGEMENT. I don't know if you’ve ever worked with teenagers, but they can be a tough crowd!

  A creative visual element created instant impact, and encouraged engagement with the discussion topic. Even participants who were not contributing, were more engaged with the discussion, as visuals of the conversation appeared in real time, consolidating key points.

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As we were working with four different groups of young people, I tailored the live illustration methods to each setting.

1. Live painted mural

Live painted during a discussion about substances, on a spare wall at Bucks Youth Justice Offices.

This serves as an educational resource at the centre, and celebration of the Youth Justice Group’s work - the participants signed the mural. The final live illustration was also featured in this report.

Myself and discussion participants! I never thought my job would include painting outdoors with a head torch on!

2. Digital Collaborative Live Illustration

   
   

I digitally live illustrated this discussion, live streaming the artwork from my iPad to a projector for max visibility.

One of the participants was a keen artist and joined me in drawing key points in the conversation.

I incorporated their artwork into the final piece. Look carefully and you’ll spot the different styles!

Live illustration of a 30 minute discussion about access to healthcare for young people with Care experience

3. Live Illustrated Board (with collage!)

   
   

For this discussion I condensed 100+ post notes into one cohesive live illustration, about young people's relationship with the police. To celebrate young peoples voices and contributions, I incorporated some of their handwritten comments into the final artwork.

The display will be used by Thames Valley Police community engagement pop ups. You can read more about it here.

From this...

To this!

4. Digital Collaborative Live Illustration: The sequel!

   Coming soon!

....!

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Success Measures

The young people responded really positively to each session. Paying attention to the needs of each group and event, allowed for maximum engagement and care. My live illustration allowed young people to feel heard and empowered, and convey key information to child safeguarding professionals to support young people in Buckinghamshire to their best abilities.

“Elly, thank you so so much for today. You have created something beautiful, helped young people share their voices on a really important topic, helped the Council and TVP and the BSCP progress their aims and priorities, and generally helped dozens of young people and adults have a fun, interesting and meaningful day.”

Krissie Hutton, Youth Participation Manager, Buckinghamshire Council

In conclusion, this has been a fantastic and rewarding project to work on. I have really enjoyed getting creative and interactive with live illustration.

If you have a similar project in mind, I’d love to hear about it!

Email me at hello@ellybazigos.com

Or click here to book a free consultation call