A look at how supporting young people to be active advocate for arts and culture can help cultural organisations to reach new audiences, develop their knowledge and increase engagement.

1. Growing Together:
How Young Cultural Leaders
Can Help Expand Engagement

2. @ROHBridge
@CliffManning

3. About Us

4. Work strategically across Hertfordshire,
Bedfordshire, Essex & North Kent to
connect and nurture high quality,
sustainable cultural learning for all
children and young people

5. Assure cultural entitlement for all children and
young people
Nurture cultural ambition in cultural organisations
Advocate and influence

6. £717,108 invested in sustainable partnerships
Leveraged an additional £1,680,020 in
co-investment
Additional £284,018 invested in target areas: Film; Teaching
Schools; Diversity; Heritage
£30,000 to support professional networks
226 schools gained Artsmark
8,655 Young People achieved Arts Award
2012-2015

7. Assure cultural entitlement for all children and
young people
Nurture cultural ambition in cultural organisations
Advocate and influence

8. Young Cultural
Leaders

10. A Young Cultural Leader is a young
person, aged up to 25, with an
understanding and knowledge of
cultural practices and processes.
They are empowered and supported
to share and advocate their
perspective.

11. A Young Cultural Leader is a young
person, aged up to 25, with an
understanding and knowledge of
cultural practices and processes.
They are empowered and supported
to share and advocate their
perspective.

12. What do Young Cultural
Leaders do?
What are the benefits?

14. “I hope to study psychology at
university in the near future so all the
research methodology and data
collection information I’ve learnt will
be very useful.
Regardless of career aspirations, I
would encourage any young person to
get involved with their local arts and
culture organisation. You can make a
difference.” Nicole

16. They have enabled us to reflect on our
past programming choices for young
people.
we recruited two Young Producers to
be on our Board, for a year’s tenure.
One of them has now become a
permanent Board member
Watford Palace Theatre

19. Running a project
Common Challenges

23. Example Projects

25. Background:
Started as a consultative Youth Board
Young Producers more active –
Risk takers
Support across the organisation
Successes:
Produced events
Increased membership
Two YP on Theatre Board
Becoming Self funding

26. Watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk

28. Aims:
Produce work
Organise & lead sessions
Gain Arts Award
Successes:
Produced 4 events
10,566 Young people attended events
12 leaders trained to deliver arts
awards
43 Arts Awards gained by young
people

29. Fullhouse.org.uk

30. Top Tips

31. Do:
• Be specific in the offer and realistic in expectations and
time: in the project aims; to funders; and to young
people.
• Ensure that young people know what they are signing up
for and the commitment needed for the project.
• Allow sufficient time for a youth-led project to thrive: it is
a lot more time-consuming and labour-intensive than
more directed work.
• Take young people seriously; build relationships.
• Have faith in young people's ability to be engaged, to lead
and to succeed.
• Create space for ideas to flow.
• Create opportunities for open and honest discussion and
reflection.
• Ask. Listen. Encourage.
• Invest in young people: training; free events etc.
• Disrupt familiar behaviours; take people out of their
comfort zones.
• Keep telling everyone why the work is good. Get buy in
from colleagues (from the top of the food chain to the
bottom).
• Create a communal space for food and informal
discussion - it builds trust.
Avoid:
• Being too informal; structure and freedom
are needed.
• Saying 'What we usually do is...'
• Not giving enough time.
• Too broad an age range.
• Being over-ambitious (start in a modest way).
• Too much responsibility for YCLs, too soon. Support
and respond.
• Tokenism!
• Losing focus.
• Reinventing the wheel! Find out about
existing/previous work and effective practice.
• Forgetting to support people when you take them
out of their comfort zones.
• The breakdown of communication between the
YCLs and the facilitators. An open dialogue is
essential from the beginning.

32. Beyond the Project

35. Next steps

36. Hertfordshire Programme Manager
Emma Van Nieuwenburgh
Emma.vannieuwenburgh@roh.org.uk

37. Thanks
@ROHBridge
@cliffmanning

38. Illustrations
Jason Ramasani
@jasonramasami