Brighter Sound Elevated Risk programme

At Brighter Sound, we have been delivering our Elevated Risk programme in partnership with a large children’s charity since last spring.

Whilst I am not about to suggest for a moment the process has been plain sailing, we feel we are in a position to confidently share some outcomes and learning. Our programme is not yet fully complete, but with relationships built between us and the participants & partners, we’re confident that by April we’ll be in position to report favourably on a challenging but ultimately fulfilling programme of work.

For this blog I’d like to focus on working at partnership level. This has at time been challenging, and I’m sure our partners would agree, but on the whole we are happy to report that through of negotiation and compromise it is possible to make these things work, to the benefit of all involved.

Before delivery commenced, our project looked to be in doubt, for a few reasons, due to our main contact in the organisation being made redundant just at the time we received notification of our successful bid. At this stage and for the next six months, we came to a few conclusions, some of which may seem obvious..

• Partnerships with large organisations should not be built around one individual within that organisation.  
• Be prepared to make significant changes to your programme plan as you develop new relationships within the partner organisation.
• Be prepared to have ‘sell’ your project to new managers in the face of resistance.
• Don’t assume promises for match funding made at application stage to still be honoured!
• Persevere! There will be managers and services who will buy into your project and will have experience and understanding of the positive outcomes which can be achieved through music. When you find that support, everything will click into place more readily.

This last point is of course key to delivery of an effective programme of work. In our project’s case, we have arrived at a situation where our partner organisation could see the value of ‘setting free’ the participants once the planned workshops had come to an end. We have continued to work with the group from our own workshop space, on a weekly basis, and have developed a strong relationship with the group. They have been helping us with the production of their final project celebration event, taking place on 4th March at Band on the Wall in Manchester.

I’ll follow this blog with another one shortly, focusing on the young people involved in the project and their outcomes and journeys with us over the past few months. If anyone would like to share any thoughts or comments so far please join the discussion.