by Author Jo Jamieson

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How 'virtual' can music mentoring be?

A bit of context first - since 2007 Unitas have offered three week full time 'Summer Arts Colleges' to groups of young people in the criminal justice system, who work with a range of skillful and dedicated arts practitioners and music leaders. These Summer Arts Colleges have been very effective at engaging young people and achieving positive outcomes, such as achieving Arts Award, improving music skills, supporting progression into education and training, and increased self efficacy. Through our evaluation we know that young people consistently report that the positive relationships formed with music leaders is a key factor in their engaging with the College, enjoying the activities, gaining music skills and improving in confidence.

What we did

In 2014 we piloted the Summer Arts College with young people in the care system at six locations throughout England.  We wanted to offer music mentoring after the end of the Summer Arts College, providing continuing music and emotional support from music leaders who the young people had already built a positive relationship with around their shared love of music.  But challenges are presented by the experiences of many young people in the care or criminal justice system who are often subject to being ‘moved around’  - either to different physical locations through changing residential placements (many young people are placed 'out of area' so move away from their home area), or within the care system as different professional services intervene.  The challenge is how to offer music mentoring to young people who may be experiencing constant change and who can't necessarily attend face to face meetings.  

Social media and technology have changed the way we communicate in all areas of our lives so we decided to explore whether virtual mentoring might offer opportunities for maintaining mentoring contact with young people in the care system.  So music leaders who had taken part in the Summer Arts College acted as music mentors to those young people who wanted a mentor, for up to four months after the summer holiday period  The music mentors offered both traditional 'face to face' mentoring sessions,  but in addition, music leaders were encouraged to use ‘virtual mentoring’ to maintain contact with young people e.g. through Skype.

 

What we have learnt

Our key learning so far is that virtual mentoring can be a really useful tool in supporting young people.  What we have learnt is (this may seem obvious!):

  • Make sure the young people have access to the necessary IT!  We provided pre loaded tablet pcs to young people for them to use during the Summer Arts College, which they could then keep at the end of the Summer Arts College – this enabled them to continue using the tablets to develop their own music and creativity, and also to access ‘virtual mentoring’.  Young people with high levels of interest and skills in technology were the most enthusiastic about engaging with online mentoring.
  • Make sure mentors have the necessary IT  equipment and skills, and are as confident as the young people in using technology.  This may require guidance and training for mentors!
  • Appoint a co ordinator who is experienced in managing IT and virtual communication, who can be another contact point for young people.  We did this after the mentoring had started – the coordinator became a key person in avoiding communication breakdowns (either technical or personal) and re establishing contact with young people and mentors when they failed to achieve a  mentoring appointment (in person or virtual).
  • Safeguarding is a real issue which we need to explore further.  Young people who were considered vulnerable were not able to access the internet so mentoring continued as face to face mentoring only.

 

However virtual mentoring did offer benefits and opportunities:

  • One young person, through filming his performance, was able to share this online and review and analyse this ‘remotely’ with his mentor and others
  • Once the 'virtual mentoring' dynamic had been established, there didn’t appear to be any substantive difference in the nature of the relationship; for example one young people was confident to share with his mentor online  the personal difficulties he was facing at school
  • Young people were often experiencing change and transition.  Although for some young people this interrupted their mentoring, for others the virtual mentoring was able to provide consistency and focus at this time of challenge for them.
  • Skype sessions could be recorded (using bespoke software), which could be used as Arts Award evidence (and could also be a tool for safeguarding)
  • Young people who are unable to access an Arts Award Adviser/Centre are able to work independently to achieve Arts Award, with the mentor as a ‘virtual Arts Award Adviser’. 

 

So there’s still work to be done, but we do feel that the concept of ‘virtual mentoring’ is worth pursuing and there are some parallels with rural isolation (see Ayvin Rogers blog) and the benefits 'virtual coaching' can bring.  It's important we develop understanding of how virtual or remote mentoring can be used most effectively to ensure all young people, whatever their circumstances, can access music mentoring and progress their music skills.