Laura Callaghan GroomsMay 23, 2016Comment

Youth Voice in Music at BYC #BeCreative

Laura Callaghan GroomsMay 23, 2016Comment

YOUTH VOICE ‘TEST’ EVALUATION - OPEN ACCESS YOUTH CONSULTATION SESSION AT BYC

A test, by Jack Kingslake

Description of the Youth Voice ‘test’ session
Consultation with a broad group of young people around Platform B radio, and Bfest, with presentations from both. With facilitated feedback session facilitated by me.

Description of the young people represented at the Youth Voice session
A fairly wide cross section of young people, around 24 in total, largely from bands or interested in music, between the ages of 14 and 19.

What were the successes of the Youth Voice session?
I think it was very well attended and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the room, which shows that there is a genuine interest from young people in the subject matter, and a willingness to take part in consultations. I think the two projects were able to gauge levels of interest from the YP as well as getting in contact with specific young people with specific skills and interests to offer. I think holding the session at BYC meant we were able to get a lot of ‘passing trade’ from young people who were in the building anyway, and having other youth workers around was useful as well.

What were the challenges of the Youth Voice session?
The fact we were at BYC in a fairly small space right next to the larger social space was good in the sense that we were able to get people in who didn’t previously know about the session, but it meant it was quite difficult to facilitate. YP were walking in throughout the session, and once we let them into the social space for the break, rounding them back in again was difficult. Saying that, we did manage to get everyone back in the room for the second half which clearly meant they were enjoying the session. I do think if we had less young people in a more separate space, we may have got more high level interaction from the young people. I feel like a lot of the input we got from young people wasn’t particularly thought through. This was also because there was possibly too much to talk about at once. While having the two projects presenting together made it easier to promote to young people, I felt that it may have been overkill.

What was the overall learning from the Youth Voice session?

Smaller groups or bigger space, with less different things to think about at once.

How would you do things differently if you were to run another Youth Voice session?
I would have liked to follow through with the idea of playing some of the young people's music in the break. There was the little informal rap session that happened that was good, and the feeling of excitement in the room was great, but I feel like overall it wasn’t as focused as I would have liked, primarily because of the distraction of having a big busy free youth work session happening right next door, and the fact we were squeezed into that small space.

FURTHER DETAILS:

Test title

Open access youth voice consultation at Brighton Youth Centre, featuring BFest and Platform B

Test date

Wednesday 16th February 2016 from 6.30 - 8pm

Type of consultation

Youth panel-type consultation following existing work in this area by Sound Connections / Rhythmix, offering authentic youth-led music opportunities to engage young musicians. Organised by Hand on Heart Arts, facilitated by Jack Kingslake and supported by BYC, Platform B and Audio Active.

Aim/Question(s) we wanted to explore