Using music with a group of asylum seekers in local authority care

Reading the Fairbeats and Sound Connections report on the network (Pathfinders: A research report on music progression routes for children and young people from refugee, asylum seekers and new migrant families) and reading Catherine Carter’s blog has prompted us to share our experiences of delivering a three week Summer Arts College with a group of young people who were asylum seekers in the ‘care’ of the local authority.

The ‘looked after’ population of young people is diverse – traditionally we think of young people whose family care has broken down for a range of reasons, but many of us have not worked with young people who are ‘looked after’ and may not really understand the range of needs they have. Through Youth Music funding Unitas worked with six local authorities and music organisations to pilot ‘Arts Colleges’ with young people aged 14-18 who were under the care of the local authority.  The first thing we learnt was that local authorities have responsibilities for a broad range of young people  -  young people in care (i.e. care order has been made), care leavers (although care orders end when a young person reaches 18 years old, local authorities must have in place a Pathway Plan and support young people’s transition to adulthood ) and young people who are on the ‘edge of care’ i.e. at risk of entering or re entering the care system.

One of the Arts Colleges was delivered in  partnership with Lyric  Hammersmith.  The young people were all in the care of the local authority as being asylum seekers under the age of 18 with no family members in the UK.  Working with a group of young people, who were in personal stressful situations, facing uncertainty about their future and whether they would be granted refugee status, and for whom English was their second language, presented immense challenges but also opportunities to the music leaders from the Lyric Hammersmith.

As others have recognised, music has tremendous potential to generate a positive change for young people, and music provided a common language to help bridge cultural and language gaps.  Both music leaders and the young people learnt from the experience

Music leaders developed their own skills and knowledge –

• Arts Award can be used effectively with young people who have limited English language  skills.  Arts Award is flexible in how achievement can be communicated and evidenced – allowing young people to use written or spoken English and visual material, depending on their individual abilities. 
• Using young people’s music heritage added to the wealth of the programme
• Practical things for working with young people for whom English is a second language e.g. using translator tools such as Google translator

Young people benefits 

In addition to the benefits achieved by all young people who take part in Arts Colleges, such as improving their music skills, achievement of Arts Award, progression to education and training, there were additional benefits.  The  Arts College:

• Enabled young people to continue to develop and practise their English language skills over the holiday period when other provision ceased for holidays.  They also gained a music vocabulary in English
• Avoided young people feeling isolated (they were in accommodation across London) as they were able to meet with other young people in similar circumstances and with shared language

As Catherine identified in her blog, progression is a key challenge as a project ends, and can be especially difficult for young people to cope with if the music project briefly overcame their feelings of isolation.  We were fortunate that progression was:

a) an intended outcome from the beginning of the Arts College, so young people engaged with personal planning during the  Arts College, and focused on their plans for progression.  The music leaders helped ensure progression was in place for each young person

b) the local authority Looked After Children Team, as the statutory agency, were impressed by the outcomes achieved and recognised how participation in music could help them fulfil their statutory duty to these young people.  They made efforts to ensure staff supported young people in identifying ways in which they could continue to develop their music and arts skills. 

c) The music organisation, the Lyric  Hammersmith has a commitment to supporting progression and staff worked hard to signpost young people to music and arts progression. 

We are continuing to maintain contact with the young people as far as possible, and hope that this will provide us with some evidence of the longer term impact of participation on these young people.

Working with a group of young people in care who were  asylum seekers had not been expected – however due to the efforts made by the music leaders, this  Arts College was very valuable and successful for the young people who took part, and has increased our knowledge of this small but vulnerable group of young people within the care system.