Young Creatives – Our Weekly Youth Group!
After several months of consultation with local young people, we launched our free weekly Young Creatives group in September 2023. It was created in response to a clear gap in creative opportunities for young people in the area, particularly for those who aren’t drawn to sports but still want a space to connect, create and belong.
The group is open to 11–16 year olds and meets every Tuesday evening during term time. It offers a safe, welcoming environment where young people can explore their creativity, build confidence and develop new skills at their own pace.
Since launching, Young Creatives has grown into a lively, ideas-filled space where creativity takes many forms. Projects have included zine-making, digital drawing, poetry, well dressing, textiles and banner-making, stop motion animation and creative litter picking, alongside space to experiment, take risks and try something new.
The group has worked with a range of artists and creative practitioners, giving young people insight into different ways of making and thinking. To name a few, they have taken part in clay workshops with Krishna Alageswaran, creating animals and dystopian landscapes; they have worked with Quiplash, exploring audio description and accessibility in the arts; they worked with Social Pickle on preserving and fermentation of food; they have collaborated with internationally recognised theatre company Forced Entertainment, opening up new ways of thinking about performance, storytelling and live art.
They have taken part in trips to the Crucible and the Lyceum Theatre, the Museum of the Moon, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and local street art tours, helping to broaden their understanding of what creativity can be and where it can happen.
At the heart of the programme is a co-created approach; Ideas are developed collaboratively between young people, artists and facilitators, with regular consultation shaping the direction of sessions and projects. This shared process allows young people to influence what happens, while being supported to explore new possibilities, build confidence and work together as a collective.
Young Creatives have led and contributed to a number of public-facing projects. In December 2023, they organised and hosted their first pop-up exhibition in RivelinCo’s shopfront on Middlewood Road. In May 2025, they presented their second exhibition, Resting in the Ruins, as part of Open Up Sheffield, exploring themes of rest, sanctuary and resilience in imagined future worlds.
In June 2025, the group played a central role in the RivelinCo Midsummer Festival in Hillsborough Park, programming and hosting a dedicated Youth Takeover Stage, and running a Comic Art Takeaway stall. In October 2025, the Young Creatives designed and decorated their own woodland glade as part of the Parkwood Springs Lantern Festival.
In 2026, Young Creatives have been taking part in the Pride of Yorkshire project, a region-wide public art trail celebrating 150 years of Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The group has been working together to raise funds to support hospital features that bring comfort, creativity and joy to young people during their stay in hospital. Alongside fundraising, the project has offered our young people the opportunity to work collaboratively on a large-scale public artwork, developing their ideas from initial designs through to a finished piece that will be seen by audiences across the region.
The group also supports RivelinCo’s wider programme of community events, including helping to deliver the Makers Market, contributing to intergenerational projects such as building a Little Free Library, and creating decorations and activities for discos and family cinema events.
Young Creatives is more than a weekly youth club. It is a space where ideas are shared, shaped, and brought to life!
If you or a young person you know would be interested in joining, please contact our Neighbourhood Producer for Youth (Grace) at youth@rivelinco.org or call 0114 327 1670.
