Mortal Fools and Newcastle Carers are joining forces across 2025 for a new collaborative creative intervention project empowering young adult carers to engage with the arts and creativity.
Mortal Fools will be working with Newcastle Carers Young Adult Carers (YAC) group, to co-design a creative intervention that is responsive to their ideas and needs, whilst supporting the group’s wellbeing, skills development and creative health.
Whilst we have a long track record of delivering highly impactful creative intervention projects with young people with intersectional needs, in a variety of settings, this is our first young adult carers project and our first collaboration with Newcastle Carers.
Mortal Fools will be working with Newcastle Carers Young Adult Carers (YAC) group, to co-design a creative intervention that is responsive to their ideas and needs, whilst supporting the group’s wellbeing, skills development and creative health.
Whilst we have a long track record of delivering highly impactful creative intervention projects with young people with intersectional needs, in a variety of settings, this is our first young adult carers project and our first collaboration with Newcastle Carers.
"We are thrilled to join forces with Newcastle Carers to deliver a collaborative pilot creative intervention, that is accessible to young adult carers and enables their engagement.
We are looking forward to piloting and trialling new ways of working; together with young carers and Newcastle Carers staff we will co-design an intervention that better serves their needs, enables their engagement and platforms their voices through-out. Through this partnership, we want to deepen our understanding of young adult carers lives; their needs, aspirations and lived experience. All young people deserve to have access to brilliant creative experiences with their peers, especially those like young carers who face multiple barriers in their lives and are often overlooked by the arts and culture sector.”
-Helen Ferguson, Creative Producer at Mortal Fools
ABOUT NEWCASTLE CARERS
Newcastle Carers provides a range of practical services and holistic support to those who are caring for someone due to illness, disability, mental ill-health, or problems linked to addiction.
1 in 12 young adults in Newcastle have a caring role and often struggle with no support.
Newcastle Carers are a brilliant charity trying to change that by providing access to information, support and opportunities to take a break.
As this is a pilot project, we are excited to learn about Newcastle Carers practice and to try new and different ways of working with young people whilst centring the needs and lived experience of young adult carers through-out the project’s evolution.
1 in 12 young adults in Newcastle have a caring role and often struggle with no support.
Newcastle Carers are a brilliant charity trying to change that by providing access to information, support and opportunities to take a break.
As this is a pilot project, we are excited to learn about Newcastle Carers practice and to try new and different ways of working with young people whilst centring the needs and lived experience of young adult carers through-out the project’s evolution.
“We are thrilled to partner with Mortal Fools on this important new project that empowers young adult carers to engage with the arts.
In the UK, 600,000 young adult carers aged 18-25 take on caring responsibilities. These young adults face challenges that impact their education, employment, mental health, and social lives. They particularly face limited access to the arts due to time constraints, financial limitations, and their caring responsibilities, which means they miss out on creative opportunities that could benefit their wellbeing.
This collaboration will create a vital space for creativity, self-expression, and connection for young adult carers while acknowledging and celebrating their voices through the power of the arts.”
-Luke Bramhall, Chief Executive Officer at Newcastle Carers
MORTAL FOOLS X NEWCASTLE CARERS INTERVENTION WILL:
- Support the wellbeing of young carers by creating a safe and fun space to build/make friendships, try new things and use creativity as a form of self-expression.
- Support young carers to step outside their comfort zone and provide opportunities to enhance their employability, youth leadership and communication skills.
- Provide opportunities to develop creative skills, experiment with different art forms and work with creative professionals. Across the project, they will co-create artistic outputs such as live performance, film or audio.
- Platform young carer’s voices and their lived experience via creative project outputs.
- Encourage the group to attend cultural events (e.g. a theatre show) by organizing supported visits.
- Test and evolve Mortal Fools’ co-creation practice and creative intervention approach to ensure it is accessible, appropriate and responsive to young carers’ lives and needs.
- Provide an opportunity for peer practice sharing between Mortal Fools & Newcastle Carers staff.
PRACTICE SHARING
And speaking of practice sharing…..to kick off this pilot project, in February, Mortal Fools and Newcastle Carers, came together to do just that. We spent the day together to share our ways of working, delivered training and held space for collaborative discussion ahead of beginning the project. Both staff teams got a lot out of the session together and we can’t wait to do more!
Photo of Mortal Fools and Newcastle Carers staff teams from our practice sharing session.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the practice exchange day with Mortal Fools; it was great to work with an organisation that really prioritises young people in its work. I gained valuable new skills that will enhance my role in supporting young adult carers.”
-Julie Summer-Morrel, Young Adult Carers Worker at Newcastle Carers
“The practice exchange day with Mortal Fools was excellent! I learnt new skills that will help me when engaging young people, and I now feel I can use these skills confidently in my role with young carers.”
- Abby Webster, Young Carers Groups and Activities Worker at Newcastle Carers
We will update this website page as the Mortal Fools X Newcastle Carers project unfolds.
FURTHER INFORMATION AND SUPPORT FOR YOUNG ADULTS CARERS
To find out more about Newcastle Carers and their work:
Newcastle Carers information & support for young adult carers can be found via:
If you’re curious about what it’s like to be a young adult carer, we suggest checking out their #WeCareToo campaign created by a group of young adult carers & Sail Creative:
