Tuned In! Breakthrough Music - COVID-19 Update
Hi Everyone - I hope you are all keeping safe and well! As we face these challenging times in both our personal, social and creative lives through our music-making projects, our team have been setting up alternative ways of engaging with our young people who attend the music sessions across Redcar & Cleveland.
In terms of adjustments to our programme we have created a closed Facebook group for the young people at one of my projects in the central area who attend the ‘Tuned In! 2 Music’ sessions where I have been posting various activities on the main page including quizzes and various challenges. I have recently added one of the music leaders who was working for us before our centres closed. I am hoping for her to do some music tutorials and activities in the future. This group is closely monitored by youth workers and only verified young people will be able to access the group.
We also have an Instagram page www.instagram.com/tunedinredcar @tunedinredcar where I will be posting interactives quizzes via Instagram story and other posts for young people to get involved in. This is an open social media for any young people to get involved in.
REDCAR & CLEVELAND BOROUGH COUNCIL
Teenagers still tuned in for support and fun
YOUTH workers have been coming up with ingenious ways to keep teenagers occupied during the coronavirus outbreak.
James Lilly, Youth Activities Leader, has been setting daily challenges online for the borough’s 13 to 18-year-olds.
And he’s been amazed by the response to his regular quiz which has had dozens of teenagers taking part from across Teesside.
Specialist online youth groups, including James’ Tuned In! 2 Music group who would ordinarily meet at Redcar’s Tuned In! building, are closed but are providing an important outlet for creativity for teenagers. However, two monitored, online sites on Facebook and Instagram are available for 13 to 18-year-olds to access and take up daily challenges.
“I just thought, ‘we have all these young people stuck at home and can’t access our youth provision- what can we do?’ I started off by issuing daily challenges. The first one was ‘learn a new instrument, song or dance’ and that went down really well. Since then we hope to continue the challenges with young people learning new recipes, drawing anime cartoons or learning foreign language phrases.
“One of our young people, Lara Rowlands from Saltburn, 17, put on a video of herself playing Wonderwall by Oasis and has been a bit of hit which, considering she only picked up a guitar for the first time two months ago is amazing. We’re encouraging more of them to put efforts on the site. It could be a song or a meal or anything.
“I was a bit shocked by how well the quiz has been going. We use GIFs and pictures to keep it interactive as possible and I keep thinking they’re too hard – but it’s great to see how knowledgeable our young people are and actively engaging in these digital activities. They get about 90% right – it would be great to see more members of the community taking part too.”
The closed, youth groups for teenagers already involved in Tuned In! have been a big hit too. “I do the Tuned In! 2 Music group, which has about 30 members, and we thought, ‘we must continue this and not lose contact.’ It shows our young people’s commitment that they keep going.”
TOILET ROLL CHALLENGE
OUR dedicated youth workers have taken on the ‘toilet roll challenge’ Young people across the borough can also get involved and make their own version.
Participants must ‘pass’ the toilet roll on video and then it is spliced together and the council’s youth workers have made their own example video.
Keep Safe!
James
