Musicares: Music teaching for care experienced children and young people

What we aim to achieve is upholding that right for care experienced children and young people to develop their creative potential and explore creative opportunities, and enjoy those opportunities and all the associated benefits that come with that.

—Rollo Strickland - Programme and Development Manager – Sound Lab

For the past 8 years, Musicares has been working with care experienced children and young people, to provide access to music tuition, instruments (which they are happy to lend to children and young people so they can practice at home) and recording equipment, to give young people the opportunity to find a place where they can create and grow through creative expression.

Musicares is a partnership between Sound Lab and the Scottish Music Centre. They work with young people across Scotland from age 6 to 25, working in 29 different local authorities, delivering 870 hours of free tuition a year to over 400 different care experienced young people.

Musicares takes a rights-based approach, under article 31 of the UNCRC, that all children and young people have the right to access arts and leisure opportunities should they choose to do so. The project exists to offer opportunities that are often not available to children and young people in care, in the same way they are to other children. The programme is unique across the UK in its scale and ambition, and has recently attracted interest from the UK Government, looking to pilot a similar model in England.

How Musicares works

Children and young people can be referred by social workers, third sector partners, parents or carers, or the young people themselves. Due to the success and person-centred approach of the programme, many referrals will come from word-of-mouth recommendations from those who are supporting young people, or the young people themselves.

Musicares is based in a fully equipped studio, but tutors will also go out to children’s homes, secure care facilities, homeless accommodation, schools, or youth work settings— wherever will work best for the people they work with.

They take a participant led approach, shaping their tuition and mentoring to the needs of the person they are working with, being flexible with times, locations, and subject matter. Often, young people will come in for one thing and then discover a talent or joy in something else, and this is fully supported and encouraged.

(Photo by Eoin Carey)

Rollo, the Programme and Development Manager, said:

Being flexible and being participant led is so important because it's about placing the power in the hands of the young person. And the relational aspect of the delivery model is key. Turning up for the young people and being ready to do what they want to do. If they want to spend an hour talking about their mental health or talking about their peers or their struggle, then that's completely fine with us. We are not a music school where you are forced to do grades one through eight. It's about the quality of the relationship.

Many of the children and young people who are referred to Musicares have struggled or been excluded from mainstream education, and often have significant social and mental health difficulties when they first get involved with the service. Musicares works to build strong relationships with the people they work with, and this is hugely impactful.

Increased confidence, making friends

Feedback from the young people and the carers who work with them show increased confidence: they’re making friends, it can improve language skills when English isn’t their first language, help improve family relationships and decrease offending behaviour where this has happened in the past.

Attending Musicares can lead to opportunities in the creative arts, with some young people going on to successful careers in music or sound production, and in other cases young people have re-engaged with mainstream education, finding that the confidence and supportive relationships they’ve developed give them what they needed to find their sense of value and move forward.

Sometimes, when a child or young person is referred to the programme, they may struggle to see themselves as having a place in the programme, and they will self-exclude themselves because they do not see creative arts as being something they can do, or will feel that they don’t deserve this. Musicares are keen to widen access generally to arts programmes like this, so that children and young people with care experience will see this as a normal part of life.

Challenges and successes

(Photo by Eoin Carey)

Musicares do face challenges with their work, most significantly with funding, they’re restricted with what they can do by the funding in place, and this is often short term and insecure. This has led to demand being higher than what they can provide. They mitigate this by seeking funding from multiple sources, and information sharing with other organisations working in the same space helps with this. But long-term secure funding and backing would greatly improve what they could offer and how many people they could work with.

Despite this, Musicares has been hugely successful in its aims to give care experienced children and young people access to music and creativity. This is due to the young people themselves and their leadership and engagement with the project. Also vital is the support of social workers and carers, who’ve seen the results in the young people they’ve worked with and go over and above to make sure they support the people they care for to be able to access this. The other key factor in making this project work is the tutors, who are recruited as much for their values and their passion for the work as their musical and teaching skills.

Whilst Musicares mostly supports beginners, The Sound Lab recently announced a professional development programme – New Sounds Academy – which offers career development support to care experienced young musicians who are looking for support to level up. Thanks to funding from National Leadership Network, four young musicians will each receive 50 hours of tuition, £400 to invest in their creative practice, a writing residency at Cove Park, as well as recording, performing and networking opportunities.

Find out more about The Sound Lab’s New Sounds Academy programme.

Find out more about Musicares.