Some of our past commissions – Needs UPDATING

We’re pleased to work with a wide range of partners, both large and small! A selection of our previous commissions and projects are shown below to get a flavour for our work. We are also proud to have worked with hundreds of organisations through our Youth Voice Training programme, including delivering in-house bespoke commissions for organisations including museums, theatre companies and the British Youth Council.

ProjectSummary
Trinity College London:
Arts Award Youth Network
Since 2011 we have been developing support and resources for the many thousands of young people who undertake Arts Award qualifications each year. It is out of this work that Upstart Projects was born in 2014. We developed a network of young people across the UK who we supported digitally and met regularly to train them as young ambassadors and researchers. These young people then attend events and activities to meet young people and learn how to develop Arts Award and were trained to undertake specific consultations that led to change within Arts Award, including its support, new products and brand.
See: voicemag.uk/artsaward  
ChalleNGe (LCEP): Nottingham Youth Cultural Partnership Board  Engaging young representatives from a range of cultural and youth partners across the city, this group is recruited and trained by our team for regular discussion and skills development aimed at influencing the policy and re-development of the city’s offer to young people, creating training and networking opportunities for young artists across the city. See: challengenottingham.co.uk/connecting-notts  
Leicester & Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership:
Youth Advisory Board
We have created a youth board to engage young people interested in raising awareness of careers and sustainability across Leicestershire. We manage and facilitate regular board meetings, events and training activities to develop skills and highlight opportunities for young people to influence their local area.
See: llep.org.uk/delivery/the-llep-youth-advisory-board/  
Trinity College London:
Skills Research
In 2019/20 we were commissioned to work across 6 countries to research the perception and necessity of 21st Century Skills with educators, employers and in policy provision.
In 2022 we built on this research within the UK to identify the skills needed for early career professionals within identified sectors (including the technology, financial and creative industries). We have also conducted research with nearly 4,000 young people specifically about their experience of music education.  
Warwickshire Cultural Education Partnership: Young Trustee DevelopmentWe have delivered a programme that has trained 19 young people to influence local organisations at a governance level, and are facilitating a programme of regular meetings and support to ensure their continued personal and professional development whilst volunteering as trustees on their host boards. See a few responses to our training at:
shoutoutforthearts.co.uk/2023/01/04/a-unique-experience-training-day/  
Kickstart Support ProgrammeA national network of 52 young people participated in our support programme through 2021/22 which helped them develop key employability and life skills to work with employers from theatres to licensing companies, retailers, national charities and small film studios.  
Bridge England Network:
National Youth Voice Initiative
Commissioned by Royal Opera House Bridge on behalf of the Arts Council England Bridge network twice, we produced amplify-voice.uk – a platform that showcases best practice in youth voice. We interviewed 32 organisations to produce rich case studies that represented the diversity of our country.

National

Trinity College London, the international exam board: communications and consultation with young people doing Arts Award and other Trinity arts qualifications, Arts Award ambassadors, Arts Award and TrinityTalent alumni celebrations. We have also delivered a number of research projects.

Bridge England Network, creating a national website profiling the voices of children and young people in creative and cultural learning; Amplify.

UK Youth, We have been a Digital Champion Hub for the Microsoft supported Generation Code: Accelerator programme – supporting youth organisations to develop digital methods and networks to engage young people.

Arts Award Supporter, we further built this online network of organisations friendly to young people doing their award.

CCSkills, the sector skills council, commissioned us to consult young people and promotes our creative careers advice.

Festivals: Voice magazine is Youth Media Partner at Brighton Fringe and press-accredited at Edinburgh Fringe as well as many other arts festivals.

Mozilla Foundation, This global non-profit commissioned us to consult an international cohort of young people, so we ran an afternoon of workshops ‘Exploring the Impact of Artificial Intelligence‘ with c.50 young people and engaging some great partner organisations including NESTA and the BBC.

Regional

Bridge organisations forge links between cultural organisations and education at regional level. We’ve previously worked with several bridge organisations through our youth voice training programme and Arts Award Youth Network.

Arts Connect Speak Up! programme – blah

We’ve also provided young journalists for events with A New Direction and Arts Connect West Midlands, managed youth involvement in a regional arts and education conference with The Mighty Creatives and managed the research for the Royal Opera House Bridge’s youth voice publication.

Local

Local Cultural Education Partnerships bring arts and education organisations together to join-up and improve cultural education for children and young people in their local area. We are working with ChalleNGe (the Nottingham LCEP) to run a Youth Cultural Partnership group currently until September 2023.

We work with a number of local authority based organisations to deliver our training including providing speakers and facilitators about developing youth voice for an education conference with the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham.

Warwickshire LCEP – Young Trustee Development programme

Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership – Youth Advisory Board

We’ve worked with several schools and local organisations to support delivery of Arts Award, including providing remote advisers and assessment.