Youth Coordinator Laura Fullwood and Executive Director Nick Thorne join ‘Make Your Mark’ Podcast
Orchestras for All’s Laura Fullwood and Nick Thorne join creative freelancer Yasmine Dankwah on Music Mark’s podcast.
‘Make Your Mark: Notes on Music Education’ invites expert guests to discuss the challenges of youth music, highlight inspiring stories and share learnings on how everyone can better support young people to make music.
This new episode explores what meaningful youth voice and leadership can look like. Joining the conversation alongside creative freelancer and previous Wired4Music Associate Yasmine Dankwah are Orchestras for All’s Youth Leadership Coordinator, Laura Fullwood and Executive Director, Nick Thorne. They share OFA’s approach to embedding youth voice into every level of the charity, from day-to-day programme delivery to board-level governance.
Listen to the full episode on Music Mark’s website here >
A Clear Pathway to Youth Leadership
“At Orchestras for All we really champion youth voice and youth leadership.” explains Laura. “We have our very own youth leadership programme, which I oversee. We try and get all our young people involved in as many ways as possible in the organisation, from having them on our trustee board, in our core team, and even on our very own youth board.”
“We’ve created a really clear progression pathway where young people can move from one role to the next and get involved in lots of different activities. There are really clear responsibilities and ownership points within those roles as well.”
Read more: Barefoot London Marathon: National Orchestra for All alum runs for change
Pictured: Youth Leadership Coordinator Laura (left) enjoying last year’s NOFA Summer Residential
Youth Voice at Every Level
“It's really important that we have young people in every aspect of our work and we listen to and utilise that youth voice.” Laura continues.
“The programmes that we run, we run for the young people. We want them to benefit from them, and we want them to enjoy themselves whilst they're on the programmes. So, to us, it only makes sense to involve these members and alumni who have been through these programmes into our leadership so we can get their feedback and their ideas, and through that we can continue improving our programmes.”
Nick agrees: “If you make sure young people are genuinely heard and listened to, and you value their opinions and decision making as much as anyone else's, then you make the best answers and solutions for the charity that you're working for”
“Less than 3% of trustees in this country are under 30” he adds “If we're talking about representation and getting young people involved, that's a pretty stark statistic. Hopefully we're doing something to make that change.”
Designed by Young People for Young People
It’s not just OFA’s leadership structures that centre youth voice. The charity’s recent rebrand was also co-created with its Youth Board.
Nick shares the concept behind the visual identity: “Our branding is very colourful because the Youth Board wanted to show the diversity of our groups and our ensembles. There are musical brackets around our logo to show that we're all here together and everyone's got a voice, and everyone can be heard. They wear their t-shirts with huge pride now because they put it together and they designed it.”
Looking stylish: Young Musicians at NOFA Wearing Their Orchestras for All T-shirts
Music Mark’s Podcast series highlights organisations across the sector working to increase access and equity. Orchestras for All embodies this across its programmes.
“NOFA is for young people that are really passionate about music, but they all face some kind of barrier to music making.” Explains Nick. “For example, 35% of the orchestra are on free school meals, about 70% are in high deprivation areas in the country, 15% have physical health conditions or disabilities, about 35% are neurodivergent.”
“We have always taken a really tailored individual person-centered approach to how we support the orchestra.”
Reflecting on OFA’s learning about youth voice, Laura shares: “We don't have all the answers and we're open to learning and developing. What works for us at the moment may not work for other organisations. It's definitely not copy and paste.”
“But if anyone who is listening and is inspired by any of these things that we do, I would advise you to give it a go. Some things will go wrong, but lots more will go right with young people's voices in the room.”
