This was a professional development project for Music Leaders wishing to engage children and young people with disabilities through their practice and in their workshops.

Introduction

In the lead up to the summer holidays in 2014 OCM’s Education and Outreach Officer Jordon  Maynard-Daley made contact with Dan Parasol to discuss delivering some music session with young people he works with on the Parasol Project. The Parasol Project is a youth project that engage with a wide range of mixed ability young people ranging from your average typical teenager to young people with disabilities and special education needs. At OCM we are committed in supporting our music leaders so they can deliver effective and inclusive music projects for our participants. In order to ensure that this happens on the Parasol Project Jordon was able to secure some funding from Artswork to deliver a CPD session for music leaders in the creative and cultural sector with an interest in working with special needs and disabilities. Some of these leaders would be working on the Parasol Project, so we wanted to “Amplify their practice” by supporting them in ensuring the delivery of an inclusive, effective and high quality project sessions with the Parasol project and beyond.

Context

With funding from Artswork OCM were able to run a ½ day training session in disability awareness for music leaders. Graham Dowdall from The Drake Music training team came and facilitated a session on disability awareness and how those present could adapt their current practice to ensure their methods were inclusive and effective for working with young people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities.

The Story

Morning slot

Graham Dowdall from The Drake Music training team came and facilitated a session on disability awareness and how those present could adapt their current practice to ensure their methods were inclusive and effective for working with young people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities

Afternoon Slot

This was a practical session. Music leaders brought in their own equipment and sessions plans relating to typical workshops that they deliver and everyone contributed ideas for how sessions could be adapted based on what they learnt in the morning session.

Next Steps

This project has confirmed that there is a very strong case for music leader development in the creative and cultural sector.  Everyone involved truly gained something tangible by attending.

This project is part of OCM’s longer term strategy to strengthening the sector.  By investing in sessions like this, both OCM and other organisations in the South East will benefit from skilled practitioners, who will be able to deliver highly effective workshops to young people and communities.  Those young people and communities will in turn reap the rewards of this investment.  OCM hopes to be able to deliver more projects like this in the future.

Thank you to Artswork Bridge Organisation, particularly Trevor Harris and Ruth Taylor, for funding this project.  Also, thank you to Graham Dowdall who facilitated an excellent session and all those that attended.