Creative Youth
The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (OAC) invests in teaching artists, educators, and organizations that are working toward a stronger more vibrant creative youth culture. We do this through funding programs, professional development, cultural partnerships, public education initiatives, and other opportunities.
Our work supports arts learning, skill building, and well-being in school, outside of school, and entering into creative careers in the arts.
School Day Arts Learning
The Creative Advantage is Seattle’s city-wide collaboration working to ensure every Seattle Public Schools (SPS) student receives the arts education they deserve. The Creative Advantage is made possible through a collective impact, public-private partnership with SPS, OAC, the Seattle Foundation, and over 100 community arts partners on our roster.
The Creative Advantage Community Arts Partner Roster is a filterable list of teaching artists and community arts and culture organizations who provide student residencies and teacher professional development. These community arts partners are approved to work in SPS through The Creative Advantage, with funds provided by OAC. The application to join the roster stays open year-round. Learn more and apply to the roster.
Creative Youth Program Opportunities
Arts Partner Professional Development
The Creative Advantage invests in teaching artists and educators through workshops that deepen qualities of practice and foster community. This includes an annual day-long Institute, a Fall Meet & Greet for partners to mingle with classroom teachers, and discipline-specific Arts Education Coalitions in music, visual art, and theatre.
Emerging to established teaching artists, administrators, and youth development workers are invited to participate in these trainings presented with our in partners. To receive information on upcoming trainings, please sign up for our monthly Arts Education newsletter.
Out of School Time, Creative Youth Development, Cultural Education
OAC's Youth Arts grant offers 2 years of funding that helps middle and high school students in Seattle get more access to arts and cultural opportunities. These programs happen outside of school hours and are led by experienced teaching artists.
We’re also piloting the Seattle Creative Youth Development Network (SCYDN). Seattle has long been a hub for innovative and transformative youth arts programming, and behind every impactful program are youth workers—teaching artists, mentors, advocates—who often go unseen and under-supported. Through research, insights, and focus groups, we learned that:
- Youth workers need a space for connection, learning, and care — not just professional development, but true community.
- Burnout is real, and too often youth workers leave the field just when their impact is deepest.
- A healing-centered, well-resourced network could radically improve retention, well-being, and outcomes for both workers and the youth they serve.
SCYDN helps solve these issues by bringing youth workers together from different fields and disciplines. It’s a space where frontline staff can meet, share challenges, exchange ideas, and find ways to better support youth. It also offers a local network for peer learning, collaboration, and engagement, while creating opportunities to collectively fund programs or projects that combine the resources and strengths of multiple organizations.
Creative Careers
OAC supported the development of the SPS Media Arts Skill Center funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, our office, and SPS. It is now self-sustaining.
We collaborate with the Seattle Office of Economic Development (OED), SPS Visual and Performing Arts and Career Technical Education Departments, and many community partners to produce Creative Economy Career Day. This event is a free, one-day educational program that provides learning opportunities for young people aged 14-24 to discover and explore careers within Seattle's diverse creative sectors. Youth have direct access to creative industry professionals through networking, experiential learning, engaging workshops, vendor tabling, and performances.
OAC and OED also partner on funding Northwest Folklife’s Cultural and Creative Workforce Development Internship Program, where Seattle’s young creatives have paid internships with opportunities to develop skills and connections within the creative industries and the cultural sector.