The situation. Youth at risk in Auburn.

The music studio at the Auburn Youth Centre (AYC) was not being utilised by the young people who attended AYC, as AYC did not have the resources to offer young people musical training or studio supervision.

I partnered with the AYC to design and deliver a program that would enable the music studio to be utilised, and to include a support program for young people interested in music (the program).

This task required me to:

• Research - empathise with young people at risk in the Auburn and the surrounding Western Suburbs, understanding their unique needs;

• Identify opportunities for grants and obtain funding; and

• Design a new music service that met the needs of young people at risk at AYC.

Provided expertise: user research, service design, program delivery, impact measurement, program management

Researched it.

• Applied for, and obtained, funding in the amount of $10,000 from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation (ADF), to conduct research about the need for the program.

• Research based on the quantitative data from 1000 youth surveys provided by AYC/Council and research findings from the ADF, indicated that:

  • Access to the arts, including music mentorship, was in demand by youth in Auburn and the Western Suburbs;

  • Abuse of alcohol and drugs (AOD) is correlated with risk factors found in youth including poor engagement and employment, lack of positive role models, lack of means of emotional regulation;

• Further qualitative research was designed and run through a series of focus groups with youth at AYC to identify their unique needs in respect of a prospective music mentorship offering, which revealed that they required instruments in addition to support in song writing after school.

• At the conclusion of this phase, I presented my research report to the ADF which led to an additional round of funding in the amount of  $40,000 to design and deliver the program.

Design it.

Co-designed an evidence based end-to-end music mentoring service in collaboration with partners. The service documentation included processes and procedures for:

• Recruitment of mentees and mentors;

• On boarding and training of mentees and mentors;

• Matching of mentees with mentors based on skillset and interest;

• Coordination of music mentorship sessions;

• Monitoring music mentoring sessions for quality control

As program manager I was also repsonsible for drawing up MOUs, partnership agreements, design of digital infrastructure, staff training and the delivery of the service.

Grow it.

At the conclusion of the pilot program, I undertook impact measurement. Impact measurement included running research focus groups, interviews and participant surveys which led me to conclude that the program:

• Contributed to building protective factors against Alcohol and Drug abuse for the mentees.

• The administration of the program could be improved through digital automation of key aspects of the service such as mentor and mentee onboarding, training and matching.

The following year, I proposed an iterated version of the program and service with digital automation, to enable the program to be scaled to two further youth centres with the same limitations in resources. The ADF provided me with an additional round of funding in the amount of $40,000 to deliver this further iteration of the program.

This second iteration has now concluded being delivered to AYC + an Indigenous youth at a school in regional NSW and over Zoom, incorporating the automation improvements to the service delivery. An impact measurement report is currently being written up.

What people are saying.

“Especially in the west, we don’t have a lot of representation of the stories that we have and the creativity we have to share, so I think projects like this are very important because it will help bring a light and that there is more to us than what people no see.”

— Madeline De Leon, mentee, 23

“Sound Mentoring is committed to an evidence informed approach to driving long-term behaviour based outcomes.”

— Dean De Haas CEO of Auburn Youth Centre.