Supporting creativity, inclusion and collaborative multi-professional learning

Abstract

This article connects arguments in the field of integrated and multi-professional working concerning the need to promote a strengths-based approach to children, childhood and children’s services with writing about creativity in schooling. It utilizes strength-based and social justice approaches to encourage professionals who work with children and families to recognize the diversity of childhood and support children and families to collaboratively, creatively and flexibly develop solutions to their own life issues and their learning. It questions the extent to which schools are ready to be places that enable collaborative dialogue and considers whether targets and tests lead schools to stifle creativity. It draws from the CREANOVA project funded by the European Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to demonstrate the quantitative basis for the argument that flexibility stimulates creativity, and demonstrates that creativity flourishes in environments that value autonomy, openness, supportive structures and collaborative relationships. This finding enables the article to conclude that a culture shift can be achieved that stimulates creativity and innovation in childhood if organizations recognize the abilities of children to stimulate each other’s creativity, support children’s freedom to learn collaboratively and challenge barriers to learning such as targets and top-down performance indicators.