Young people are empowered to plan, deliver and evaluate cultural activities

The Leicester Shire Find Your Talent pathfinder Delivery Plan (2008) envisioned networks of Young Ambassadors who would act as champions of young people’s cultural activity, both with their peers and with cultural providers, venues, policy makers and practitioners.

The following outlines the approach we took to engaging with young people at a strategic level from June 2009, the activities undertaken, and the impact on the programme of that engagement so far.

Infrastructure Group and CYP recruitment
Given the profile of the partners involved in consultation on the Delivery Plan, we decided to target partners to provide members of an infrastructure group who would act as a conduit to engaged CYP, including Arts in Education (Joint City and County service), Corporate Parenting Team (Children in Care), Playing for Success, City Participation Team and experienced cultural organisations.

Recruitment through this means resulted in a core group of 8-12 young people between the ages of 14 and 18 (the Sub-Group), who came together in a programme of seven events between June and August 2009.

The events were designed to ask some ‘big questions’ at the heart of the pathfinder:

• What is a Young Ambassador?
• What skills do they need?
• What sort of people are they? 
• What will they do?
• How do we make sure that everyone can be involved?
• What are the barriers to participation?
• How do we recruit them?
• How do they / we communicate?

Through a process of facilitated sessions, creative workshops, informal / social discussions, video blogs, role-play, creative activity, etc. the Sub-Group came to the following conclusions:

• that an ‘elite’ or permanent group of Young Ambassadors would be counter-productive, and might reinforce inequalities in access / provision / participation;
• that we should focus on the types of activity that all young people undertake in the course of their cultural lives, and provide opportunities to support that activity;
• that any model we develop should balance the need for progression for young people with the need for every young person's experience / involvement to be valued.

With this in mind, and building on some aspects of the Delivery Plan, the Sub-Group and the FYT core team collaborated to agree a model based on the ‘Four Cs’:

Consumers who know about, access and try cultural provision / activity
Critics who know, access, try and then review culture (both internally and externally)
Creators who know, access, try, review and are then inspired to produce their own culture
Commissioners who know, access, try, review (maybe produce) and then invest in culture (investing time, energy, expertise, commitment and money)

The Leicester Shire Find Your Talent programme is based on the Four Cs model, both in terms of our longer-term strategic view as well as on our several delivery strands.

Our approach has had a major impact, both on the young people involved and on our Year 3 plans. Several of the young people engaged at this level have progressed to further their own personal and cultural goals, including:

• performing their poetry as part of the Special Olympics cultural programme (and having their work seen by Carol Ann Duffy);
• being responsible for securing funding for further CYP-led projects;
• being chosen to be part of the first cohort of young commissioners in Leicestershire
• increased confidence and self-esteem

Our strategy is to develop Local Commissioning Partnerships, built on existing networks where possible, that will embed active CYP participation in the commissioning cycle for arts and culture in both City and County, based around the Four Cs model.

For more information, visit the Find Your Talent Leicester Shire website or email talent@leics.gov.uk