New collection of essays released today: Leading with Purpose

14 May 2026

A New Direction has released a new collection of essays, Leading with Purpose: Cultural Education in Practice, responding to the mounting pressures facing cultural education and the growing need to recognise and support the creative leaders shaping young people’s creative lives.

As an organisation, we work alongside cultural education leaders, providing them with the support and resources through our Cultural Sector work highlighting fresh ways to look at Cultural Education Leadership across the UK. This helps us, in turn, to fulfil our mission of ensuring every child and young person has the chance to own their creativity, shape culture and achieve their creative potential.

Across the UK, cultural education is operating in an increasingly challenging environment. Curriculum time is tightening, local cultural infrastructure is under strain, and cost‑of‑living pressures continue to limit access to creative opportunities. There is also renewed recognition of the vital role arts, culture and creativity play in supporting wellbeing, inclusion and the skills young people need to navigate an uncertain world. It is within this moment of both pressure and possibility that this new collection of insights, provocations and practical tools has been created.

Cultural Education leaders work in a variety of spaces including classrooms, youth centres, libraries, studios, theatres, community spaces and online. Their leadership is relational, values‑driven and often under‑recognised. Making these leaders visible is essential, when their work is seen, their impact is understood and the pathways they create for children and young people become easier to champion, support and sustain.

Across the sector, organisations such as the Campaign for the Arts and the Cultural Learning Alliance continue to advocate powerfully for more arts, culture and creativity in young people’s lives. At A New Direction our work compliments this, championing the artists, creatives, producersand programmers who specialise in working with children and young people day in, day out.These practitioners are at the heart of shaping creative opportunity.

Leading with Purpose brings together three important voices to explore the evolution of cultural education leadership:

• Dr David Parker maps the complexities of cultural education leadership: what it is, why it matters, and what is needed to support those in the sector.

• John Riches shares and amplifies the testimonies of ten practitioners whose journeys reveal that lived experience is core to their expertise and whose hard-won insights have created pathways for others.

• Dr Chrissie Tiller connects us to the radical thinkers and philosophies of the past that underpin this work in the present and shows how this can help us create spaces of possibility for children and young people.

The essays include tips for leaders to reflect on what this means for you. As a collection designed for those working in cultural education, youth settings, schools, creative organisations or community spaces the practical tools throughout reflect the voices of those shaping the future of cultural education right now.

These essays are by no means a fixed manual, but a way to recognise, resource, and reimagine leadership for the future. We hope it will spark reflection, conversation, and action.

Download the full collection of essays today, explore and join the conversation across Instagram and LinkedIn using #LeadingWithPurpose - your insights, your experiences and your leadership will help shape what comes next.