Culture Sounds
Culture Sounds is our partnership project working with displaced children and young people in the care system.
What We Wanted to Achieve
This project emerged from our earlier partnership work through Destinies and Culture Café Makes Music, which highlighted both the barriers faced by care-experienced children and the positive role music can play in supporting their wellbeing.
Culture Sounds was the beginning of a learning curve that taught us about the challenges and barriers that care-experienced children face, and how music can positively impact their lives. The programme was part of an Action-Research initiative led by Arts Connect and The Mighty Creatives with the aim of deepening our understanding of the positive impact creative arts projects can have in the lives of these children by addressing the specific barriers they may face.
We used the action-research programme to explore:
How can music organisations and Virtual School teams work together to overcome barriers to arts participation for unaccompanied displaced children, and how can creative music-making help them develop a sense of belonging?
We worked with One World Orchestra, and delivered a number of sessions with young people in the care of Leicestershire Virtual School, to develop our creative practice to be able to answer our research question.
We wanted to keep our promise to the young people by returning to work with them. We also wanted to share the expertise developed through One World Orchestra by providing trauma-attuned training for orchestral practitioners across the region.
What We Did
Training with One World Orchestra
Between March and May 2026, three Sinfonia Viva musicians took part in a trauma-attuned training programme delivered by One World Orchestra.
Led by Darren Abrahams, alongside trauma specialists, educators and musicians with lived experience of displacement, the training explored the impacts of trauma and how musicians can create safe, responsive and inclusive environments for young people.
Creative Workshops
In May 2026, musicians from One World Orchestra and Sinfonia Viva delivered two days of workshops at a young people's residence in Leicester with the support of their youth support workers.
The workshops were co-designed with support workers and shaped around the interests, ideas and contributions of the young people taking part. Instead of following a rigid structure, sessions evolved through listening, conversation, drumming, singing, storytelling and creative experimentation.
Across the two days, young people, support workers and musicians worked together to create a shared musical composition that reflected the diverse experiences, influences and identities in the room.
The young people were great in getting involved with the playing, singing and dancing. No cajoling just got stuck in!
~ Youth Support Worker
Outcomes
This project strengthened confidence, trust and self-expression among participants.
Two young people returned from the previous year's project, providing an opportunity to see the longer-term impact of creative engagement. One participant had been quite shy and primarily engaged through movement in the previous project, rather than instrumental music-making. He returned with noticeably greater confidence, openly sharing his interest in singing and rapping throughout the workshops. The other had since joined a music-making club, and was a key voice in shaping the jam sessions.
The workshops culminated in a shared composition which participants later performed during Eid celebrations at County Hall. Young people demonstrated a strong sense of ownership and pride in the music they had created, inviting others to take part and celebrating their achievements together.
Alongside the outcomes for young people, the project also created learning for musicians and support workers. It demonstrated how slowing down creative processes, prioritising listening and allowing participation to emerge naturally can help build stronger creative relationships, trust and reciprocity.
BLOG: Behind the scenes of Culture Sounds
In this reflective blog, Chiara Dellerba shares her observations, exploring how young people engaged with music, the moments that surprised her, and what trauma-informed practice looked like in action. Through the lens of a Community Impact Coordinator, she reflects on the small moments of confidence, trust and connection that statistics alone can’t capture, offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on the project's impact
Legacy
The learning from Culture Sounds continues to shape how we work with displaced and care-experienced young people. The project strengthened our understanding of trauma-attuned creative practice and provided invaluable evidence about the role music can play in supporting belonging, confidence and wellbeing of care experienced young people.
This project has enabled us to work with One World Orchestra to secure Youth Music funding and launch a full programme, commencing in February 2027. This will enable us to expand our work, reach many more care-experienced children and provide trauma attuned practice training for creative music teams across the East and Midlands over the course of the next two and a half years.
Partner and funder credits
Partners: One World Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Derbyshire Virtual School, Leicestershire Virtual School, Arts Connect, The Mighty Creatives
Ava Hunt Theatre (Destinies)
Learning Through Arts (Culture Café Makes Music)
Funders: Derbyshire County Council, Derbyshire Virtual School, Arts Connect, The Mighty Creatives, Arts Council England