Youth Arts Practice and Futures of Work: Panel Discussion
On Friday, 11 July 2025, the Vital Arts research team hosted a panel discussion titled Youth Arts Practices and Futures of Work: Micro-Credentialling of 21st Century Skills. Chaired by Dr Tammy Wong Hulbert (Vital Arts, RMIT University), the event opened with an introduction by Professor Anna Hickey-Moody and featured a diverse panel including Dr Denise Stanley, founder of Clock Your Skills and Vital Arts educational partner, alongside arts industry representatives Adam Simmons (musician and data analyst), Claire Qian (The Push participant and law student), and Evrim Şen (arts manager, youth arts participant, and current RMIT PhD candidate).
The panel discussion focused on how creativity can unlock opportunities for young people who are too often left out of formal education and training pathways and how arts-based micro-credentials can create real pathways into employment, further study, and civic life for young people facing barriers such as poverty, racism, disability, or displacement. Denise Stanley presented on the educational philosophy underpinning Clock Your Skills, emphasising the accreditation of education in non-formal settings, she discussed our co-design work with Youth Arts Industry partners and demonstrated early trials of our Vital Arts micro-credential app with designer Rhys Cassidy, Clock Your Skills.
To date, the Vital Arts team have worked with youth arts industry partners The Push, Australian Theatre for Young People, Centre for Multicultural Youth, Back to Back Theatre and the Gippsland Art Gallery on the co-design process. A diversity of young people and professional staff from our research industry partners were consulted in the co-design workshop to recognise specific skills gained from their participation. The recognition of these skills are to be captured in the co-design process to contribute towards the development of the micro-credential.
The panellists Adam, Claire and Evrim expressed how their training in youth arts had informed the development of their skills of creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, empathy and becoming socially and culturally aware, skills often framed as the desired 21st Century skills, which are necessary for navigating increasingly challenging technological employment environments. In particular, Adam Simmons focused upon how his training in music gave him a set of skills, that were transferrable and have allowed him to work in diverse settings from playing music professionally, to managing the complexity of a music festivals and today, retraining in a different field to become a Data Analyst. Claire Qian, still a current participant of youth music organisation The Push, expressed her appreciation of being accepted and included as a teenage participant and how the opportunities of working on major music festivals, has developed many of her creative and problem-solving skills, leading to her current studies in law, focused on intellectual property in the music industry. Evrim Şen, with her many years of youth arts experience as a participant and manager in theatre and media, focused on her experience of peer to peer learning, which has honed her skills in leadership, communication, collaboration, listening and problem solving. The discussion was lively and enriching, giving audiences many points of reflection to consider the many desired benefits of arts participation for young people and their future pathways.
