Abstract
The Lullaby Project is an innovative model developed to support vulnerable groups through community-based music creation. It pairs expectant and new mothers with professional musicians, to create a lullaby for their children. This paper presents an investigation of the project’s pilot implementation in the United Kingdom, bringing together musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, refugee mothers and inmate fathers from a central London prison. The research aimed to understand how the Lullaby Project was experienced, focusing on the potential areas of perceived change linked with the concept of mental health as flourishing. Participants (N=12) took part in semi-structured interviews and kept daily notes to aid recollection of the sessions in the interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was adopted as the research approach. Participants considered the project to carry significance for them in three key areas: (1) wellbeing, through a strong sense of accomplishment, meaning and connectedness, and the experience of positive emotions; (2) proactivity, promoting initiative, both musical and relational; and (3) reflectiveness, stimulating perspective-taking and positive coping mechanisms. The Lullaby Project offers an effective model towards promotion of flourishing among vulnerable groups, and the results make a strong case for its implementation.
Highlights
Community-based music projects have been reaching a progressively wider set of contexts and are leading to a promising body of research highlighting their potential to promote positive change
Findings have been unanimous in emphasizing the role of community music making in fostering key components of psychological flourishing, such as engagement (Cohen et al, 2006; Davidson, 2011), a sense of accomplishment (Perkins and Williamon, 2014), purpose, autonomy, control, social affirmation (Creech et al, 2013), and reducing anxiety (Hars et al, 2014) and loneliness (Koga and Timms, 2001; Cohen et al, 2006)
Recent research with mental health service users focused on group drumming found significant positive change on areas such as agency, a sense of accomplishment, engagement, self-concept, and social wellbeing, as measured by qualitative inquiry (Perkins et al, 2016; Ascenso et al, 2018)
Summary
Community-based music projects have been reaching a progressively wider set of contexts and are leading to a promising body of research highlighting their potential to promote positive change. Findings have been unanimous in emphasizing the role of community music making in fostering key components of psychological flourishing, such as engagement (Cohen et al, 2006; Davidson, 2011), a sense of accomplishment (Perkins and Williamon, 2014), purpose, autonomy, control, social affirmation (Creech et al, 2013), and reducing anxiety (Hars et al, 2014) and loneliness (Koga and Timms, 2001; Cohen et al, 2006) This has been true both across general population samples and with vulnerable groups. These activities have shown high potential to create a sense of community in under-privileged neighborhoods (Camilleri, 2002) and increase social learning outcomes for at-risk youth (Wood et al, 2013)
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