Online Overview
Distance Creates: Helium's Innovative Online Programme - What’s Involved
Ages 6-12
When you sign up, you’ll receive a personalised art pack delivered to your doorstep. Over the course of the workshops, you will get weekly activities emailed every Saturday. These step-by-step guides offer creative projects and tips for parents/guardians and children. Though activities arrive on Saturday mornings, you can complete them anytime during the week.
All materials required are included in the art box, along with some extras to help promote creativity and connect participants with other children nationwide.
- Live Zoom sessions – Your child can meet the artist and connect with other young creators. These online meetings generally take place twice over a 6-week workshop.
- Post Pal Exchange – Participants are paired with a Post Pal; a new friend to exchange artwork and messages with by post. It’s a fun, creative way to share ideas and stay connected across the country!
- New for Parents – We’re inviting parents to join this much-loved part of the programme. When your child exchanges their artwork, add a little something of your own; a doodle, note, or small creative surprise, to share with another parent.
Ages 13-16
The youth programme is offered as either monthly Saturday meet-ups or week-long camps throughout the year.These workshops consist of interactive sessions carried out over Zoom. During these sessions, you will receive activities that encourage creativity and connect you with other young people who have similar life experiences. The time between the live zoom sessions can be used for catching up, or further immersing yourself in your project or activity at your own pace throughout the week or month.
Participants will receive art materials by post along with inspirational digital resources, demos, and tips from the artist.
How To Join a Workshop
First Time Joining Us?
If your child has never attended a Helium workshop, please click the link below to fill out the New Participant Form. This helps us get to know you and your child, and lets you choose the workshop you’re interested in booking.
Been Here Before?
If your child has previously taken part in a Helium workshop, simply complete the Returning Participant Form to book a spot in the upcoming workshop you’re interested in.
Online Workshop Safety
Helium has comprehensive safety procedures in place for children and young participants in our inclusive online workshops.
Our artists are trained to run inclusive online programmes and can offer flexibility as to how and when one participates.
Optional online meetings and artwork sharing occur on Zoom, a secure platform. All online workshops include supervision, involving at least two adults, including the artist, co-facilitator, and/or moderator.
Photographs capturing only artwork and the creative process, such as hands drawing, will be taken. No photographs of children’s faces will be captured without obtaining further written consent.
We never ask for a young person’s email address. The only email address used is the one provided during the registration process – we use this email to streamline the communication process between the artist and co-facilitator for the online programme activities.
Family sharing sessions are organised for children aged 6-12. The Online Family Sharings are a chance to meet the artist and the other participants and they generally take place twice over a 6 week workshop via Zoom.
Online virtual group engagements are for young people aged 13-16. These can include a mix of full group (30 participants), small group (10 participants) and drop-in sessions with the artists.
Virtual sharing of creative work takes place using Padlet for young people aged 6-16. Padlet is a secure cloud-based hosting service that provides a real-time collaborative online platform in which users can upload, organise, and share content to virtual bulletin boards called ‘padlets’. It is now widely used in educational settings. The content uploaded by participants to the Helium Padlet will be moderated by Helium.
It is important that parents/guardians remain in close proximity to their child when their child is online during the programme.
You can read more about what Helium is doing to safeguard children in the online space here.
