Recap: South East Grantholder Gathering
On Election Day 2015, there was a spirit of optimism in the air as fifteen representatives from Youth Music-funded organisations working across the South East got together for a regional grantholder gathering. This new initiative gave them the opportunity to network with other organisations delivering in the region, share best practice with like-minded colleagues, and learn about their requirements as Youth Music grantholders.
Over the course of the day, attendees learned about Youth Music grantholder procedures, shared intelligence about their use of the Youth Music Quality Framework, gained new insights into project evaluation, and picked up top tips on how to use various communications tools to promote their projects, such as press releases and blog posts on the Youth Music Network. They also got the opportunity to meet Jane Bryant, chief executive of Artswork, the bridge organisation in the South East. The group kept their energy up throughout this jam-packed day, thanks to a lively musical energiser led by Nia Collins from Southampton Music Service.
The group included representatives from many different types of organisations, including music services, specialist music providers, and community organisations working with young people. With such a wide range of experience and expertise in the room, there was plenty to share in the afternoon discussion session about how different organisations are responding to the challenges we are confronting in the music education sector.
Notably, the group identified that different types of organisations had unique strengths and resources that they were able to bring into a project. For example, music services can provide a strong infrastructure for the project, as they already have lots of systems and procedures in place. Meanwhile, community organisations can offer their local expertise, based on their strong relationships with and understanding of their local community. Recognising these differing strengths helped underscore the importance of working in partnership with other organisations that can complement what you have to offer.
Interestingly, despite their differing strengths, many organisations found that they were facing similar challenges, particularly around Arts Award and workforce and labour market issues.
Arts Award
Many organisations expressed that they struggled to get their participants to achieve Arts Awards. Although they initially believed that Arts Award would be easy to deliver, as their existing programmes already fulfilled a substantial portion of the criteria, it turned out that the remaining steps required to complete the award were relatively difficult to integrate into their programmes. As such, Arts Award felt tacked on, rather than embedded into their provision.
The group surmised that the best way to deliver Arts Award was therefore to build it into the programme from the start, rather than try to add it on later. This might include, for example, restructuring an existing programme so that it clearly maps onto the different parts of the award. Organisations can also build in time within each session for participants to complete the next section of their logbooks, making it feel like a step-by-step process, rather than a huge assignment left to the end. We might also look for more creative ways of delivering Arts Award so that it feels less like homework to the young people—for example, completing the logbooks via video diaries instead of written responses.
Of course, there’s help at hand to embed Arts Award into your offer. Artswork has invested in a series of Arts Award Development Hubs, which have a clear focus on testing and developing sustainable models, and supporting and sharing best practice with other organisations across the South East. Youth Music is also working closely with Trinity College London, which manages Arts Award in association with Arts Council England, to see how we can better support organisations to offer and achieve Arts Award.
Workforce and labour market issues
Several organisations expressed the difficulty of keeping good music practitioners in an economic climate where funding is often unstable and unpredictable. With less funding for fewer programmes and a need for diverse skills, organisations must continue to employ a wide range of practitioners but have less work to offer individual practitioners, making it difficult to sustain these relationships and running the risk of losing these practitioners.
Conversely, music practitioners also experienced their own challenges in this labour market. In particular, there is a high level of competition for work, including competition with young people they themselves had trained (a bittersweet fruit of their success as music leaders). They also cited unpredictability of working on zero-hour contracts, the difficulties of juggling work schedules with multiple organisations, and the risk of burnout from travel to different settings to deliver this work. Additionally, freelance practitioners reported that they found it difficult to make time for training and CPD events—even free events—because that potentially meant turning down paid work.
Although there is no simple solution to these issues, we can begin by strengthening communication between organisations and music practitioners to help both sides understand each other’s needs and expectations. Once both sides are aligned with each other, they can work together more effectively to combat the larger issues facing the community music education sector as a whole.
What Next?
Of course, all of this discussion took place before we knew the outcome of the general election. Now that we know there will be a Conservative majority in Westminster for the next five years, what does that mean for music education? What does it mean that there are further spending cuts on the horizon? What does it mean that there will be an increasing focus on accreditation and creative industry, and how will this impact creative expression?
Most importantly, how can we as a sector maintain our spirit of optimism in the face of the challenges that are to come? We are stronger united than apart, and this grantholder gathering was an important step toward building stronger links between organisations delivering across the South East. I hope that this regional discussion group will serve as a way to continue building those links and creating a stronger offer for children and young people across the region.