| Summary: | This study aimed to examine the impact of a Gallery-supported Arts Award programme on young people who have offended. Using a mixed methods approach, which principally employed qualitative and biographical techniques, this research embedded an innovative typology based on the memoirs of Brian Dillon. The typology helped to stimulate the memory recall of participants, and provided structure to the collation and analysis of the data. Conducted in two phases, I began by examining the impact of the Gallery-supported Summer Arts Colleges run from 2007 to 2011 on young people. In the second phase, impacts were explored through the experiences of young people who attended a Weekly Arts Award programme from 2012 to 2013. In all, six purposive young people participated in this study. The data was further informed by semi-structured interviews with Artist-Educators, Youth Offending Service Workers, session observations, Artist-Educator reflective journals, associated visual data and project reports. Conceptualising the Arts Award programmes as a type of 'rite of passage', I considered how young people could potentially be transformed. The findings from this study demonstrate how the two different programmes can cause a positive effect on the individual young people in their daily lives, as well as highlighting wider social impacts aligned to the Arts Award criteria and the impact assessments of Matarasso. In addition to discussing the implications of this study and providing future recommendations, the outcomes of this research showed that: (1) Arts Award accredited programmes as a type of rite of passage can improve the accessibility of art for young people who have offended; (2) they are effective in supporting young people in desistance from crime; and (3) the use of contemporary art and galleries as part of these programmes can help support young people's re-engagement with learning, thereby helping to transform 'young offenders' into 'young artists'.
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