Our Women’s Music sessions, developed in partnership with One Small Thing, were a short pilot programme that supported women that have been through the justice system. Through instrumental learning and musical performance, these music interventions aimed to empower women, promote community cohesion and reduce the risk of re-offending. The feedback we received on the group was incredible and echoes what we hear about other sessions we run that combine therapeutic work with music – they’re fun, they’re light – and yet they have huge impact. We hope to source funding to run the Group again.
Read our conversations with service users Amelia and Kayleigh here and then read what staff members Penny and Helen have to say below
Penny: I just wanted to feedback [on] the benefits of staff at those groups as well [as to service users]. There’s always been one of us in the group, mostly Helen, but [there have been days I’ve been] doing policy writing, and it’s really dry and I’ve said ‘right, I’m going to pop into singing for an hour’. And from the perspective of myself, that cleared my brain and just gave me a little bit of space to then be able to come back and sit back at the policies with a bit of a clearer head. So yeah, I think the benefits to staff that participate within that group is huge as well.
Helen: [I agree with] what Amelia said about putting yourself out of your comfort zone, which as you say, you always feel pleased with yourself having done it, you know. And for me, that’s exactly it. Amelia and I have had very similar singing journeys. We both quite like singing but I don’t really do it much even on my own anymore because I’ve got a family that I wouldn’t sing in front of. We didn’t think we could sing and actually, I’m still tone deaf, but those moments when we were with Kate and she was saying ‘you can sing’ and we’ve gradually started to believe it. She would say to us ‘you sound fine’ and we wouldn’t believe it and she’d record us and we’d listen to it and we’d go ‘yeah, we do sound alright’. We kept saying ‘we really want to believe you but I’m sure you’re lying when you say we sound alright’.
But it was just a really lovely journey, and we were coming each week and there’s that sort of trust. And all of the team came at one point and enjoyed it. So yes, it’s an easy one to be able to go and explain to other people what they’d get out of it, I think, having experienced that ourselves. It was very good, and I would happily help be the staff representative again! The women that we work with, we ask them to get out of their comfort zone all the time, so it’s really important that we do that as well.
