Music4Kids Inc

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

We serve children (and their families) by providing low- or no-cost musical instruments and music education or therapeutic experiences related to music. We work with disabled children as well as "disadvantaged" children, meaning: low-income; those with emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges; children in alternate residential settings such as DCF facilities, foster homes, incarceration (DYS), and group homes.

How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

Case management notes, Long-term open contact with clients and families/guardians & agencies.,

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,

What significant change resulted from feedback?

We have several group homes in the Greater Boston Area where we provide services. We received feedback from one of the homes' direct care staff and our own instructors that the overall experience was somewhat boring, and not interesting to the children - they were not showing up to the optional groups. We were worried that we would not reach our goal of providing positive, therapeutic, spiritual, emotional, and educational outlets to kids within this home. After some careful and thoughtful discussion, we called on an associate with whom we'd worked before and asked for her help. She is a person who is highly skilled in the art of creating amazing and engaging classes and games that incorporate music. We were able to admit that we needed to improve, and we reached out for help!

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders,

How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?

Through constant contact with clients and families during and after serving them, we are able to constantly offer them opportunities to contribute to our growth, and in determining the direction that our organization takes. We receive feedback primarily in conversation form, as we are always talking with our clients! We find that we rarely need to use other methods of collecting opinions because we train our staff and volunteers how to receive positive and negative feedback gracefully while in conversation. This helps us be approachable and offers a more interactive way for clients to speak up about how they'd like to see us evolve. We do receive data and reviews from our website and social media sites. We utilize these metrics to improve our reach and inform our work.

Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded,

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback,