Young Audiences Network

The Young Audiences Network aims to be membership-based collective dedicated to advancing the young audience sector in Scotland. This is grounded in four years of sector research and consultation, with a strong emphasis on children’s rights, equity, access and wellbeing.

The Young Audiences Network is led by a voluntary group comprising members from companies who make work for young audiences. The current group is Action Boat, Barrowland Ballet, Catherine Wheels & Shona Reppe, Curious Seed, Frozen Charlotte, Imaginate, Independent Arts Projects, Lyra, Scottish Theatre Producers, Starcatchers and Visible Fictions.

Background

The Young Audiences Group was a collective of organisations and freelancers who had been meeting informally since 2018 to advocate for and raise awareness of the young audience sector.

Phase one research was carried out by Cultural Radar in 2021, with a focus on identifying key needs and priorities for the Young Audience Group’s ongoing work. The findings of that research, led to a second phase which saw Victoria Beesley engage practitioners to explore what a new network/membership collective for freelancers and organisations working in the young audience sector might look like.

This second research phase identified the need and wish for greater connection across the sector, and a desire for a membership collective model that ensures diversity, equity, and a parity of voice in its leadership and activities. Great value was also placed on the need to ensure the sector’s work was guided by its audiences, and that planning, sector development and creation of new work is not disconnected from babies, children and young people. There was a strong desire to embed children’s rights into the way a membership collective would work.

In 2024, Kirstin Abraham, a specialist Equalities practitioner, was commissioned to conduct a sector-wide review of the young audience sector in Scotland, identifying barriers that exist for Global Majority, disabled and LGBTQIA+ practitioners and identified what actions should be taken across the sector to address these barriers. This research also provided insight on how the network could engage practitioners beyond those who are already engaging with established networks, as well as impacting what the structure and activities of a new membership collective should be.

Victoria Beesley also continued her research, with a focus on what work was currently being done in the young audience sector and beyond to embed the voices of babies, children and young people into creative projects, and into organisational governance and decision-making processes. Recommendations were made as to how a membership collective might embed the voices of babies, children and young people in a way that is mutually beneficial.

Events

There will be an informal gathering on 4 June during Imaginate’s Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, 5pm-6pm at the Traverse Theatre.