Yorkshire Grantholder Gathering
On Monday 11th May 2015 at Sheffield’s Workstation, attendees from 14 organisations funded by Youth Music gathered for a full day of networking, practice sharing and learning about the process of being funded by Youth Music. It was an opportunity for those who have recently received Youth Music funds (many for the first time) to meet Officers from the Grants and Learning team, other Fund A, B and C grantholders, as well as key strategic contacts in the region.
The day kicked off with the diverse range of organisations in Yorkshire and the Humber each speaking for a few minutes about their Youth Music funded projects, the young people they work with, geographical priority areas and the type of music making activity they deliver. It was brilliant to see the real range of activity taking place across the region from those working with early years groups to projects supporting refugee communities, a community radio station and music technology programme in Bradford, as well as expert support for young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Attendees also had the chance to hear from NYMAZ, a Fund C grantholder who is coordinating music outreach provision across the rural area of North Yorkshire and building skills and expertise across the county. CapeUK, the Arts Council’s Bridge organisation for Yorkshire and the Humber, also spoke about their innovative work connecting young people to arts and culture, creative interventions in schools, their CPD offer and discussed their remit to increase the region’s capacity to deliver Arts Award.
Quality Framework and Evaluation Principles
Those new to receiving a grant from Youth Music were supported in understanding how to meet their grant requirements, and were also given some examples and tips on how they could share their practice and connect with others once their grant was underway, via case studies, blogs and the Youth Music Network’s regional discussion groups. More experienced grantholders appreciated the chance to share how they were using Youth Music’s Quality Framework as a tool to encourage reflective practice, quality assure their delivery, conduct observations, upskill staff, and ensure a consistent approach amongst music leaders. There was also recognition that the tool can often be very useful for those who deliver alternative or ‘non-formal’ music provision with some grantholders offering examples of where it has been helpful in conversations with Music Education Hubs and schools. Grantholders were also given a brief introduction to best practice Evaluation and ‘Taking an Outcomes Approach’ before working through some examples of quantitative and qualitative evaluation.
Discussion Groups
After a quick ‘Musical Energiser’ from Gail Dudson at Yorkshire Youth and Music (who perked everyone up after lunch with vocal warm-up game ‘The Bubble Gum Man’), attendees split into groups to look at key organisational strengths and any specific challenges they might be facing.
Organisations shared a real variety of strengths including links with local communities, a range of genre specialisms and technical expertise, and a discussion around appropriate methods for working with children and young people facing different challenging circumstances. Bringing this range of differing strengths emphasised the importance of partnership working and how useful and powerful knowledge sharing can be. Attendees also found value in discussing the different challenges they were facing (which were often shared), and were able to offer advice around the following areas:
Progression
Progression routes into employment, education and training were seen as a challenge across the region. Yorkshire and the Humber has some of the highest levels of youth unemployment in England and helping young people who are NEET into positive pathways and skills development through music was seen as a real positive. All Star Entertainment have embedded employability training into all of their music making activity so that young people are learning the skills employers want whilst doing something they enjoy. They have also linked up with Jobcentres and Work Programme providers to fund some of this activity and most importantly are seeing young people gain confidence, skills and jobs. CapeUK and DECAT (who run Sheffield based record label DMF Digital) both run Creative Traineeship programmes which embed learning within an arts programme including festival marketing and promotion, managing acts and hosting a two day live music event. Many of these trainees have already moved into related apprenticeships at employers funded through the Creative Employment Programme.
Venues
Some organisations were being charged higher rates by live music venues as the events they are running by and for young people don’t make the same level of money on the bar. Frank Wilkes at DECAT was interested whether other organisations were facing similar issues as there may be more power in advocating to big venue groups together for discounted rates for young people.
Schools
In common with many of our other regional grantholder gatherings, there was a lively discussion about the challenges of engaging schools. It can be difficult to interest teachers who have very high workloads and a range of extra-curricular activities to keep on top of. Many felt that going in at a strategic level, either with a Headteacher or via the local authority, can sometimes help to get senior staff on board and ensure music making is valued across the whole school. AMP Awards discussed their approach of engaging with business departments in schools and ensuring that any potential barriers are removed. It was also seen as useful to link your project to a specific problem that it could help to solve, perhaps by offering a bespoke support package. There were challenges around how to communicate a ‘non-formal’ delivery approach to partners used to working in more formal music education setting, but the Quality Framework was seen as a helpful tool for articulating the benefits of each a project’s unique
What Next?
There were many other stimulating discussions taking place around the room all day which really reinforced the value of getting so many like-minded practitioners together to take stock of their work and share practice. Attendees expressed a commitment to continue staying in contact via the Regional Discussion Group for Yorkshire as a space to ask questions, and explore areas they might be able to support each other in - for example around knowledge or resources.
In the short term many conversations started on the day could be progressed; some grantholders indicated an interest in developing some regional resources around progression routes, there are opportunities to support other organisations assess the quality of their practice by acting as a critical friend, and if people are finding that there are a lack of suitable venues there could be the potential to start a campaign around asking venue groups to offer more youth friendly rates. We look forward to seeing how discussions develop and want to thank everyone for a fantastic day!