Training Strand
Through this strand we support the training and continuing development of West Midlands music facilitators, as well as building understanding and recognition of the positive impact that community arts and music-making can have on individuals and communities.
Current projects:
New Horizons: providing professional development training for musicians wanting to teach their instrument/voice, delivered in partnership with Birmingham Music Education Partnership (S4E). With the support of mac makes music, we are now developing the course to offer the Level 4 Certificate of Music Educators accreditation as an optional extra. Details around how to apply for 2025 can be found on our Opportunities page.
Shadowing/ Support Artist Opportunities: We try to build in opportunities for emerging and developing music leaders to put their skills into practice through our projects wherever possible, working with established music leaders whilst gaining feedback and mentoring support. Currently, we provide the following development opportunities in addition to longer and project specific training:
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Wavelength Peer Mentor Opportunities (2 roles per year): for young people aged 18-25 to gain experience in supporting younger musicians with mental health conditions.
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Musical Connections Volunteer & Member Volunteer Roles: participants taking part in our Musical Connections group sessions for vulnerable adults really benefit from informal support and encouragement. Musical Connections volunteers are essential in helping ensure that all participants are engaged and that their access needs are met and are crucial in supporting the work of our Music Leaders. We will provide volunteer training for those interested (alongside DBS checks and references) and welcome interest from people from care/health backgrounds, or from musicians wanting to gain experience in community arts sessions for vulnerable adults. In addition to opportunities for external volunteers, we also encourage and develop longstanding project participants to take on member volunteer roles, supporting newer members as peer mentors and/or joining our project advisory group, helping steer project content and events, and helping oversee the future direction of Musical Connections.
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Plugin Young Music Leader Roles: through Youth Music funding for this project, we have built in opportunities for young music leaders between the age of 18-25 to work alongside our lead artists in each inpatient setting each week. These roles are a fantastic opportunity for emerging music leaders to reflect on their practice, set personal goals and build their experience and confidence in music leadership, in supporting musical progression and in working in mental health settings. Our funding from Youth Music for 2025 onwards allows us to offer 2 paid Young Music Leader roles per year on the project, across April - Dec each year, working in 2 inpatient settings in Birmingham. In addition, we will have a community based role for our new OverDub Club programme which will benefit children aged 11-13 who are neurodiverse. Please see our opportunities page for more information when we are recruiting.
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)/ Youth MHFA: Through our Wavelength and Plugin projects, we provide annual opportunities for project staff and sometimes also the wider workforce to receive funded places on these nationally recognised 2 day training courses.
Arts Award Advisor Training: Through our Wavelength and Plugin projects, we have provided funded opportunities for project staff and partners to obtain Arts Award Advisor status at Explore and Discover, Bronze, Silver or Gold level, as appropriate. We believe that Arts Awards are a fantastic way for young musicians to achieve an accredited award recognising their commitment and progress in musical learning.
Understanding the Needs of Young People on the Autism Spectrum: through our Plugin project we provide opportunities each year for project staff to attend this 2 day core training, delivered by Birmingham Children’s Hospital, which has Autism Spectrum Disorder accreditation.
The above opportunities are advertised externally, on our social media sites and via our Opportunities page, where relevant.
Music Leader Peer Support Network: Through our new InSync programme, funded by Youth Music, we will continue to offer a quarterly peer support network for local music facilitators across 2025-2029, helping to support local workforce development and retention. This will build on our learning from our recent Arts Council workforce development programme and will address barriers to participation by offering real living wage payment to those attending.
Staff Wellbeing Support: At Quench Arts we really value our workforce and know that our strong, supportive and welcoming ethos and our inspiring programmes of activity rely on maintaining an inclusive, happy, skilled and fulfilled team. If you work for Quench Arts as a freelancer then we offer a programme of wellbeing and team-building activities, paid peer observation/skills sharing opportunities, paid reflection and supervision.
Seminar and Conferences: Quench Arts staff are firm believers of sharing our practice and learning. If you'd like to have access to the free resources we create, please head to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/QuenchArtsResources. In October 2017 we ran a conference called ‘Take Note – Music Aids Recovery', marking the end of our Reaching Communities funding for the Musical Connections wellbeing strand project. The presentations from this are available via the Facebook Quench Arts Resource Page detailed above. We also created 'on demand' online seminar content to share our learning from the first 3 years of Wavelength, our youth mental health project. The content can be viewed via a dedicated website page here. Our Plugin project resources and learning are shared here.
