CLP Peach Placements

Peach Placements sit within the Work-based Learning strand of Cultural Leadership Programme, and offered an eclectic and dynamic range of leadership placements across the cultural and creative industries which encouraged ‘learning through doing’ and continued professional development for leaders at all levels.

Peach Placements, (so called as they were conceived as “rich and juicy” learning opportunities) were designed to bring together emerging and mid-career leaders to learn ‘on-the-job’ alongside leaders within arts organisations, using shadowing and the delivery of discrete work projects.   49 Peach placements have been delivered since April 2007 with no two placements the same as the model adapted and flexed responding to feedback from hosts, participants, and learning from the rest of CLP delivery and partnerships.  Placements lasted six months and during that time, participants benefited from additional development through training, coaching or additional experiential learning.  Peer support was also a key element, and Peaches came together to share learnings at cohort days, developed in response to early feedback for increased network support.

This essay details the processes and delivery mechanisms involved in the programme, and looks at the learning from these placements, particularly at: the learning within the host organisation, the learning at the placement level; the demands of balancing leadership with delivery and ongoing development, often initiated by Peaches themselves, many of whom have hosted cohort days and taken the model on to become hosts in their new organisations. Although the full impacts of Peach Placements will take time to emerge, there have been significant and visible successes with participants stepping into major leadership roles across the sector.