Looked After Children and Music: Achieving Positive Outcomes - 14 June 2011, Royal Opera House, London

As part of our commitment to using music to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people, we are actively working to increase opportunities for looked after children to access high quality music provision.

On 14th June 2011, we hosted "Looked After Children and Music: Achieving Postive Outcomes" at the Royal Opera House, London. We welcomed those from across the public, private and voluntary sectors, to discuss both why and how music projects for looked after children should be developed.

We also broadcast the event live via an interactive webcast and encouraged the audience to submit questions and comments via Twitter.

Watch online

Watch a recording of the webcast below:

The key presentations included in the video are: (followed by the time they appear in the video in brackets)

• "Looked After Children and Music: An Evidence Review" presented by Dr Douglas Lonie, Research and Evaluation Manager, Youth Music (19:00 minutes) 
• "Looked After Children: Challenges and Barriers to Participation in Creative Arts" presented by Lucy Stone, Strategic Director, Rhythmix (32:18) and Dr. Alison Daubney, freelance music education researcher (35:57)
• "Sing Up & NCB Looked After Children Programme Evaluation" presented by Professor Pat Petrie, Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy, Institute of Education (48:03)

What happens next? An open letter to Michael Gove

We also took the opportunity to ask delegates to identify areas of support required by organisations working with looked after children in relation to music provision, along with how to meet these needs.

We felt that the knowledge and experience shared was so insightful, we are now writing an open letter to Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, so we can pass on the key learnings from the day.

The audience, both at the Royal Opera House and those taking part via the webcast, made a fantastic contribution. Specific topics covered during group discussions as part of the event included:

• how to develop a music project for looked after children
• CPD needs for those working with looked after children
• how to create effective cross-sector partnerships
• exit strategies and sustainability
• what needs to happen next?

What would you like us to say to Michael Gove? If you would like to contribute to the letter, please do so by leaving a comment below or on one of the group discussion pages.