rock up
Our Youth Justice focused music programme.
Rock Up works with youth justice services across the northwest, offering high quality and creative music making activities. It is a responsive and flexible programme that meets the needs and interests of the young people, supporting them in their own personal journeys and inspires them to access mainstream and creative provision opportunities.
Since 2016 the project has provided meaningful, engaging and above all fun activities through a varied programme including intensive weeks of creative activities during school holidays. From 2020 we have delivered weekly sessions, embedding music within the core offer of the Manchester Youth Justice Service.
As part of the Rock Up program TiPP is supporting Manchester Youth Justice’s ambition to become an arts based service.
“If we give children the opportunities to engage with their creativity, learn new skill, make new friends and have fun. They thrive, this is how we develop self confidence and positive sense of one’s own identity in Manchester. Big up TiPP and your amazing musicians..”
A major element of the programme is to enable young people to gain Bronze Arts Awards, nationally recognised qualifications. For many of the young people this is the first qualification they have gained and a number of them have gone to gain Silver Arts Awards.
“It was a pleasure to watch my young person engaged with something that months ago would not have been possible due to chaotic features within his life. It made me really proud to see him achieve something and I could see how happy he was to show me his portfolio, as this is the first qualification he has achieved throughout his education. A great opportunity for the amazing kids we work with! Very empowering”
Our commitment to developing the workforce extends beyond our current artistic staff. Our innovative training sessions for youth justice staff have proved to be not only incredibly enjoyable but invaluable in garnering the commitment of the youth justice staff who advocate for the project to the young people. Our partnership with the Philip Barker Centre for Creative Education sees us developing ways of using our experience and expertise to support their first-year students in bonding and settling into their course whilst also demonstrating to them the diverse applications of the arts.
“I learnt a lot from others on the project, especially about how these kinds of groups function and what kinds of action we’re able to take in response.”
“Watching fellow musicians successfully talking to different young people and inviting them into the band is always a wonderful and valuable thing to watch and learn from.”
The first two years the project was subject to a creative evaluation by Ros Hawley. You can download her report below, and one of the compositions by participating musicians features in the Rock Up video above.
