*Parakeet Playgroup - Image by Paul Stringer*

Amy Campbell is a force for creativity, community, and play. As the founder of The Parakeet Studio, she has dedicated her career to empowering children and families through joyful, hands-on artistic experiences. Her work sits at the intersection of art, education, and social justice, with a deep commitment to making creativity accessible to all—especially in Sandwell, where she is helping to shape a more child-friendly borough.

Now, as a Creative Associate Producer with Creative Black Country (CBC), Amy is bringing her expertise to the region’s cultural landscape, collaborating with artists, community groups, and families to reimagine public spaces through play and creativity. From mud kitchens in overlooked spaces to hands-on workshops inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, her work is all about co-creation, participation, and joyful expression.

In this interview, Amy shares her journey from rural Wales to the Black Country, her passion for child-centered design, and why she believes creativity is the key to building stronger, more connected communities.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to work in the creative sector?

I grew up in rural Mid-Wales, where my childhood was filled with outdoor play in the wild elements, staying out until it was either getting dark or my tummy started rumbling. Reflecting on the skills I gained through these formative years, I realise how much they’ve shaped me both in my personal life and in my career in the arts, education, and social justice. I can certainly attribute a sense of resilience—learning to bounce back from setbacks—a flexibility to adapt, creativity, curiosity, and a playful outlook, always finding the funny things in life.

My career in the arts began at 17 when I co-founded a theatre company with three friends, creating a performance for Amnesty International to raise awareness of human rights abuses. I attended drama school in Birmingham, followed by a Post Graduate diploma in Cultural Management in London. Over the years, I’ve worked in learning and participation roles for several cultural organisations in the Midlands, including mac Birmingham, Sampad, DanceXchange, Town Hall, Symphony Hall, Birmingham Hippodrome, and Fierce Festival.

I was deeply inspired by Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" and in 2008, I began working for Brightspace, a charity that funded schools in the West Midlands to collaborate with artists on child-centered creative learning programmes. As Senior Programmer, I focused on Secondary Education and Pupil Referral Units. After my time at Brightspace, I went freelance, producing youth arts leadership projects for TATE, mac Birmingham, Fierce Festival and Ars Electronica. These projects aimed to make the arts more inclusive and to empower young people to create change. I’m incredibly proud of this work and the legacy of talented artists and cultural leaders who were part of those programmes.

My focus changed when I had my first child 10 years ago, I began working with young children and established an artist-run flexible childcare service at a co-working space in Digbeth. During this time, I explored various reciprocal, relational, and play-based pedagogical approaches from the UK and abroad, and did my own TEDx talk at Birmingham Town Hall called ‘Why childcare needs reinvention’, later presenting my research at WOW Global, Southbank Centre. During this time I had two more children and retrained as an artist-playworker, completing an MA in Early Years Education at the Centre for Research in Early Childhood and visiting the Infant Toddler Centres and Preschools of Reggio Emilia.

I started The Parakeet in 2021 in direct response to the challenges facing children and childhood in my borough of Sandwell, where 26% of all children are living in low-income families compared to 17% across England (Public Health Department Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, 2018). I believe that the intersectional issues facing children and families, especially those from low-income households means that our whole community has a stake in raising happy, healthy creative children that have a positive relationship with their community, neighbourhood and local green spaces. At The Parakeet we are Inspired by the principle of play sufficiency, that we must find the time, space, and permission for play in our communities in order for our children’s healthy development, especially here in Sandwell.

Parakeet is known for its bold and playful approach to design. How would you describe your creative philosophy, and what inspires your work?

Our work focuses attention on children’s creativity, making space for this to thrive through working in community settings and the public realm, equal parts play, art and social justice. We collaborate with artists, voluntary groups, libraries, museums, schools, parks, children’s centres and foodbanks to co-create projects together that centre positive, joyful, healthy, creative and playful childhoods. Through our projects we aim to make children’s ideas, artwork, and play culture visible in our communities.

We recognise that play is children’s primary form of participation and agency in their own lives. Our approach to co-design is a type of social pedagogy, where more can be gained by working together than working alone. Penny Hay calls this ‘a democratic notion of creativity’, where children and adults work together to seek new connections in a ‘climate of creative enquiry’, so parents, artists, playworkers or practitioners are alongside children in their creative work, instead of instructing from the front.

The Parakeet Studio is a laboratory for children’s thinking, a place to tinker, to play, to create, a children’s art studio or atelier in the neighbourhood. A two-way conversation between artist and child – meeting together on familiar ground.

We find lots of inspiration from the Reggio Emilia Approach and from playwork. Also from other art + play based projects/organisations; Assemble Play, Woodland Tribe, Playful Anywhere and Glue Collective and from the great practice happening in Leeds as a child friendly city. We find our tribe on Instagram, so come and check us out and say hello!

*Parakeet Playgroup - image by Amy Campbell*

As an Associate Producer with Creative Black Country, what excites you most about this role?

Joining CBC as a Sandwell Associate is such a great opportunity to situate our expertise firmly in Sandwell, supporting our mission to create an inclusive cultural landscape for children and families in Sandwell. It is very timely as Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council are exploring how to become a child friendly borough and as a Sandwell Associate, we have the opportunity to explore creative evaluation methods and arts-based co-design approaches with local children and families. It's an exciting time nationally with the "Raising the Nation" Commission on play, which is currently gathering evidence and insights. The aim is to deliver a report with policy recommendations to improve children’s access to play opportunities across the UK by summer 2025. This could lead to a national play strategy—something we haven’t had in England for 12 years!

How do you see design and creativity playing a role in community engagement and cultural projects?

Both play and creativity are processes that thrive when given the right conditions, so creating the right environment for children to be creative is paramount. Our approach is to try to think about how we want people to feel when they come to our events and sessions.

We want children to feel safe, to want them to engage, and to be invited to play, create and make. So there needs to be a sense of permission, a sense of wonder, the space needs to be inviting, but not ‘finished’ or too tidy to capture their imagination. We use Simon Nicholson’s Theory of Loose Parts and favour open ended materials and resources - tools not toys. Nicholson says that: ‘In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.” Loose parts are variables, children need environments that have lots of loose parts or variables in a laboratory-type environment where they can experiment, combine, enjoy and find things out for themselves. We create these spaces based on what we know about how children participate, through up-to-date research and child development theory.

A key aspect of creating these environments is ensuring that parents and carers feel welcome. Every child development theory emphasises that the significant adult in a child’s life—their parent or carer—is their first teacher and play partner. Young children will always look to them first before engaging in an activity, so it’s essential that parents and carers feel relaxed, at ease, and well-supported.

Collaboration is a big part of your work. How do you approach working with different creatives and communities to bring ideas to life?

We are lucky in Sandwell that there are loads of amazing artists and organisations that work alongside children and we support each other and collaborate when we can, including; The Playcycle, Jodi Ann Bickley, Wild Lives Forest School, Bear Bookshop, Fantastic Journeys, Ampersand Projects, Spectra, Polarbear, Glue Collective, Black Country Touring and Multistory.

There are also lots of fantastic community organisations that we work alongside too including Smethwick Foodbank, Bearwood Community Hub, Dorothy Parkes, Sandwell Museums, Sandwell Library Service and St. Hilda’s Church.

One of our initiatives is the installation of mud kitchens in neglected public areas, such as disused community spaces or empty lots. These mud kitchens transform overlooked spaces into vibrant play spaces, offering children the freedom to engage in open-ended, imaginative play right where they live.

We are particularly proud of our collaborative work for the FLOW Children’s Biennial in 2022, which engaged over 1,800 children through a multi-art form, multi-practitioner festival made with, for, and by children. Highlights included a shipping container children's makerspace at Bromwich Hall Museum in Friar Park, serving families from the largest housing estate in the Black Country, and Build Your Own Art Centre, where children worked with Woodland Tribe to create a massive, playable art installation in Warley Woods using slab wood, hammers, nails, and drills.

*Children’s Makerspace - image by Amy Campbell*

What are some of the key projects you’ll be working on with Creative Black Country, and what impact do you hope they will have?

We have been running a weekly early years arts programme, designed for under 5s, their adults and childminders called Parakeet Playgroup at St. Hilda’s Church, community room and garden, where we have built a mud kitchen and pocket garden. The sessions take inspiration from the infant toddler centres of Reggio Emilia and specifically their use of the atelier or arts workshop/studio.

The creative-play based programme integrates elements of choice, wonder, and delight to engage children's curiosity and imagination. We aim to develop collaborative partnerships where parents, carers and childminders help to build an image of each child, of their interests, likes and dislikes and these feature in the sessions. We have covered lots of themes and topics in sessions including;

Trajectory Schema, Movement, and Journeys: Creating elaborate ball runs using pipes, guttering, and tubes, which aligns with the children’s natural curiosity for rolling, pushing, throwing, and exploring the cause-and-effect relationships of balls and tyres sent down slopes of varying angles.
Mark Making: Embracing creative expression through "Anything Goes" painting.
Weaving, Sewing, and Threading: Encouraging fine motor skills and creativity on a big collaborative artwork that we all add to each session.
Tools, Making, and Building: Introducing hand tools like drills and hammers to explore construction methods, using wood, cardboard, paper and loose parts.

We’re very open for visitors and welcome any Black Country based artists to come for a visit and meet our families and to see what we are up to!

What do you think makes the Black Country’s creative scene unique, and how do you hope to contribute to its growth?

The Black Country’s creative scene is such a hidden gem! There’s this unique blend of industrial history and modern creativity that gives the area such character. The community here is incredibly friendly and always willing to help each other out, which I think makes it even more special. People really support one another, and that sense of collaboration is key to our local creative community. In Smethwick we’re working with Black Country Touring, Spectra and Bearwood Community Hub on the Smethwick Arts Collective, which is a neighbourhood focused arts offer that brings art to the people. The Smethwick Arts Collective was born out of the desire to create an ‘arts centre without walls’ to deliver creative activity across a network of community venues in Smethwick. We are a partnership of local arts and community organisations working together to programme high quality, accessible and affordable theatre performances, creative workshops and family activities in local venues across the town. The project aims to embed creativity into our neighbourhoods, foster a greater sense of community, and enhance well-being through creative participation.

Personally, I’d love for Sandwell to be recognised for the amazing work we do with children and families, especially at the community level. There’s so much potential for creativity to bring people together and make a real difference, and I think the Black Country is the perfect place to lead that charge. I’m excited to be part of helping the creative scene here grow and to make Sandwell a child friendly borough.

If you could give one piece of advice to emerging creatives looking to make an impact, what would it be?

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can! Also, design for a feeling. Think about the emotions you want to evoke and how you want your work to connect with people. And don’t forget to really get to know your audience! Understand how they like to participate and what resonates with them, so you can make an impact that feels authentic and meaningful.

Thanks to Amy Campbell, Director Parakeet Studio for taking time out to share her creative work.

Follow the Parakeet’s instagram: @ _parakeet_studio

Championing Play and Creativity in Sandwell: An Interview with Amy Campbell