Youth Music Mentors

Youth Music Mentors is a national programme run by Youth Music which aims to improve the life chances of young people in challenging circumstances through music based mentoring.

sound futures are delivering the programme in Hodge Hill District in partnership with Shard End Youth Inclusion Programme. Working across several challenging settings, mentors are engaging with young people who are at severe risk of social exlusion.

Following several years of successful work in schools, sound futures is also working in Hodge Hill Girls' School to mentor a group of pupils alongside their class-based music lessons adding value to their learning and offering a unique chance to experience one-to-one mentoring. 

Programme Objectives

• To deliver high quality music based mentoring provision for young people in challenging circumstances
• To provide links to high quality music making experiences
• To engage and train inspirational music leader mentors who are appropriate to the needs of the participants
• To provide young people with opportunities which will develop their resilience, social and emotional skills and enable them to lead successful and fulfilling lives
• To help motivate and prepare young people for future routes into education, employment or training

Background: DCMS and The Respect Agenda

Youth Music Mentors has been running since summer 2006 when the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) approached Youth Music to invite a bid for £666,666 of Treasury money to set up and deliver a national music mentoring programme to support the Respect Agenda and Taskforce (www.respect.gov.uk). Following a successful bid, pilot programmes were set up in 14 identified Respect areas between 2006 and 2008. In addition to using music as a tool to encourage mentoring, pilots using media and sport were also developed. These programmes were managed by The Media Trust and Sport England in partnership with The Youth Sports Trust and Creating Excellence. 

In 2008, Youth Music was invited to bid for a continuation of funding for the mentoring scheme and was subsequently awarded £1m to deliver Youth Music Mentors until March 2011. Despite the Respect Agenda being no longer in existence, mentoring continues to be a government commitment and therefore the programme fits strategically with some of the aims of DCMS.