Shortlisted for 2022 Awards
30 Stories of Family Arts:
Can’t Sit Still
Lockdown was hard on all of us, but for mothers with new babies, just when they needed support around them, they found themselves in isolation. That was until Can’t Sit Still came up with a fine way to thread people together.
Invisible Thread was made up of activities focused on positively impacting the mental health and wellbeing of over 300 mothers directly and indirectly affected by Covid. Over 150 of their babies, 50 family members and nearly a hundred neighbours and friends were involved in different groups. One group was the Creative Wellbeing support group where mothers and babies met weekly, outdoors, for creative activities led by two artists during Lockdown. Another project featured outdoor doorstep gigs where two musicians played intimate doorstep concerts for new mums, their families, and neighbours.
For something crafty, there was a bracelet making where the finished bracelets were exchanged with another mother, reinforcing the invisible thread of support between mothers everywhere.
All the activities were free, making them accessible to mums from low socio-economic backgrounds. Working with partners who were already known to the mums allowed them to trust in the activities and gave them space in which they could continue meeting up after the project had finished.
From their base in South Gloucestershire, Can’t Sit Still devise performances and projects using physical theatre, circus, and live music. They make work with and for ‘unusual audiences’, by which they mean children, young people, people who are labelled as having special needs (PMLD, SLD, MLD), Autistic people, people who are D/deaf, new mothers and birth parents with babies, people who use English as a second language and anyone who, for any reason, might not believe that the arts are for them.
Can’t Sit Still has been shortlisted for the Audience Impact & Innovation Award in the 2022 Fantastic for Families Awards. Winners will be announced on 16 November 2022 in the free online awards ceremony.
You can discover all 30 Stories of Family Arts here. If you’d like to discover more fantastic organisations that meet our Family Arts Standards or Age-Friendly Standards explore the Fantastic for Families Directory.
Photography by Southville Photographic
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