Working in Cold Spots
More Music has been working on cold spot projects across Lancashire for several years now, seeking to engage children and young people from challenging circumstances with music making opportunities to inspire creativity and help build confidence.
The learning we have done over this time has been invaluable, in terms of building and maintaining partnerships, the growing experience of our musicians in this field but also working on the challenge of developing our session delivery to incorporate Arts Award more centrally.
Previously under the Music Inclusion banner, we have created short term projects in Blackpool, Fleetwood, Skelmersdale, Blackburn, Preston , Fleetwood and Burnley, as well as our home patch of Morecambe. Friday Night Project is a hip-hop/rap session that we run during termtime for many years which has improved our relationship with our local community, particularly young people.
Within our recent Fund C work, we have continued some of those partnerships as well as establishing new ones.
We also seek to involve local organisations in our work in order to share skills and broaden the skillset in the areas we work. We involve local musicians as trainees so they can gain experience of how to deliver this work so there can be a legacy for the projects after their conclusion.
Our current cold spot projects range from 10 to 14 sessions over the Autumn 2015 and Spring 2016 terms:
• Morecambe Library: Working with up to 10 young people (mainly girls aged 14-18 with emotional problems) who are involved with ACE (Achieve, Change, Engage). The aim is to work on songwriting and ultimately produce a video for a completed song that can be an anthem for the group.
• Skelmersdale Library: Working with 11-16 year olds to develop them as musicians, create bands and work towards performances. We’ve been working at Skelmersdale Library for two years, we first began music sessions there as a way of engaging young people who behaved disruptively at the library and who needed a positive activity to take part in. Our continued involvement has built bridges between library staff and youth people, helping to create a positive relationship. Working with a trainee from the Engine Rooms, a local rehearsal studio and venue that provides music tuition and qualifications for participants.
• Wyre Youth Zone, Fleetwood: An open musicmaking session for 12-18 year olds, up to 17 young people, working towards a final performance at the end of the project. Working with local music teacher Francis Ajiteru from the Modern Music Academy alongside our music leader Rick Middleton
• Blackburn Youth Zone: Working with Blackburn Music Hub and Blackburn Youth Service to establish a new music night at the Youth Zone, a large space with other activities taking place at the same time, such as sport and art. A drop in session based around band making, music production, singing and songwriting, working alongside youth workers to support the sessions and who are looking to develop their musical skills for use with young people.
As ever, the challenges we face are mainly being able to effectively manage projects over a large geographic area, where regular visits from project managers are not practical. Clearly communicating responsibilities with music leaders and partners is key, in terms of the outcomes of the project and the documentation required for reporting. We are also working to integrate Arts Award into our sessions and to get our staff to a level where they all feel confident to deliver it.
We would be interested to hear from others about their experience of delivering cold spot projects, particularly with regard to the challenges of incorporating Arts Award into the programme and how you have dealt with this.