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History

The Arts Network for Children and Youth (ANCY) is an incorporated, non-profit arts service organization, founded and based in Ontario but with a national scope. ANCY was founded by leading practitioners from across Canada who were involved in innovative child and youth, community arts programming for ages 3-30. The key activities for the organization include:

  • Playing a leadership and partnering role in issues and initiatives affecting community-based cultural activity for children and youth in Canada including working with the three levels of government to ensure that children and youth arts are embedded in policy
  • Communicating with and supporting existing arts organizations working with children and youth
  • Assisting in the expansion of community-based arts activities for children and youth in Canada
  • Collaborating, sharing with and acting as a resource for new and existing programs
  • Providing guidance and support to new programs and communities Partnering with arts organizations to connect them and facilitate their work in new communities while working on policy development

 The current legal and original name for the organization is the “Children and Youth Cultural Development Association” which came from the recognized need that there was no other art service organization in Ontario designed to support multi-disciplinary arts programs specific to children and youth outside of the school setting. While ANCY supports and collaborates with arts organizations and artists that work in schools, the majority of ANCY’s work is directed at organizations who deliver programming outside of the school as well as municipalities to look at sustainable opportunities to expand programming. From 2004 – 2006 , ANCY hosted 6 forums including 3 in Ontario. The first forum in Ottawa in 2002 was the first time that many practitioners working in the community setting had come together. We held 2 forums in Toronto at Harbourfront Centre, 1 in Halifax , and 1 in Vancouver bringing together arts organizations, artists and policy staff from cross ministries including funders and policy staff with the intent of creating awareness for the need to expand arts based programs for children and youth in community settings. Over the past 12 years, staff and board members have been involved in over 75 national round tables, conferences, and consultations with the arts, justice, education, health and social sectors. ANCY also serves as a member representing children and youth arts programming in communities on several provincial and federal boards. In 2007, we began gathering and cataloguing existing international research, much of which is available on our website. From this we began to develop “case-making documents”. For the past 3 years we have met with over 30 communities across Ontario to begin to discuss the next level of community development. We hosted 10 “Tell Us Your Stories” mapping sessions in municipalities across Ontario. For some this was just an introduction, for others we have moved ahead and are working in partnership with an arts organization to do a three day performance/ workshop with a wide variety of children and youth in those communities. Like this conference at Harbourfront Centre we see this as "one of many" opportunities to bring new arts experiences to municipalities and non-arts partners while we also work with them on community development planning with the intent to begin the process of developing a sustainable model for children and youth arts programming. From 2000 to today we have had the opportunity to meet with arts organizations and artists to talk about the work that they are doing. We have identified many of the “best practices in arts organizations and program delivery”. Through this review of “observational research on the ground” we have acquired a vast knowledge of information from the field. This observational learning has led to increased knowledge of what the “children and youth community programming framework” should look like. This has reinforced what we knew were the major barriers to stabilizing and expanding programming at local levels:

  • Lack of awareness of a variety of innovative programming possibilities when delivering programs in the community setting or bridging school and community programming
  • Lack of substantial core funding to sustain programming long term
  • Lack of “creative spaces for children and youth” infrastructure
  • Enough trained artists who work with children and youth in community settings especially in rural and remote localities