COOL Music: a ‘bottom-up’ music intervention for hard-to-reach young people in Scotland

Abstract

Community Orientated and Opportunity Learning (COOL) Music was a 12-month collaborative project between researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University and practitioners at the Edinburgh-based social enterprise Heavy Sound. The project began in October 2017 and involved 16 sessions of participatory music making with 32 ‘hard-to-reach’ young people (aged 12–17) aimed at increasing confidence and self-esteem and improving social skills. Using COOL Music as a case study, this article explores some of the challenges faced by community-based arts organisations tasked with delivering such interventions, contrasting COOL Music’s small-scale, targeted, community-based approach with prevailing top-down music interventions in Scotland. We argue that such programmes are particularly suitable in engaging those at the margins of society, reaching them on their own terms through music that resonates with their own lived experience. However, we acknowledge the short-term and transitory nature of such projects may prove problematic for some hard-to-reach groups who require more stability in their lives and may also lead to staff fatigue and burnout. We call for further research in these areas, and greater policy attention to be paid to the sustainability of such projects.

The impact of a community‐based music intervention on the health and well‐being of young people: A realist evaluation

“…Trust was achieved through the self‐identification mechanism, triggered by the polyhedral approach, and the important role of music practitioners. Due to their specific training, experience and professional skills, music practitioners were fundamental in promoting the feeling safe mechanism (Crooke & McFerran, ; Millar, Steiner, Caló, & Teasdale, ). Connectedness was promoted by the feeling of protection, described above and triggered by the establishment of trust, which became a contextual characteristic of the intervention self.…”

“…Trust was achieved through the self-identification mechanism, triggered by the polyhedral approach, and the important role of music practitioners. Due to their specific training, experience and professional skills, music practitioners were fundamental in promoting the feeling safe mechanism (Crooke & McFerran, 2014;Millar, Steiner, Caló, & Teasdale, 2019).…”

Impact of Social Innovation on Innovation and Business Growth in Mexico

“…Consequently, "companies generate wealth that can address poverty and hunger, and even universal access to education" (Aksoy et al, 2019, p. 442), they are the engine of our world and their services are socially innovative (Aksoy et al, 2019). Likewise, it identifies and reflects on difficult social and emotional experiences, improves social outcomes to increase well-being and participation in services, and supports vulnerable people, generating learning and guidance services for the community (Millar, Steiner, Caló, & Teasdale, 2020;Vanderhoven et al, 2020), addressing social inequalities (Vanderhoven et al, 2020). Thus, "social innovation contributes to changing behavior in different institutional settings, through markets and public sectors, and to improving responsible inventiveness from the bottom up towards the integration of social networks, economic and environmental objectives.…”

Eficacia de los programas de musicoterapia: un metanálisis cualitativo

“…Algunos estudios utilizan diferentes técnicas cualitativas combinando el registro observacional y los grupos de discusión (Hall et al, 2019), el registro observacional y entrevista (Millar et al, 2020), la entrevista y el grupo de discusión (Perkins et al, 2016), e incluso triangulan las técnicas utilizando la entrevista, el registro observacional y diarios de práctica de los participantes (MacRitchie et al, 2020).…”

“…La mayoría de los programas (10) tratan condiciones referidas al bienestar y la calidad de vida (20%). Los indicadores tratados son la confianza y el compromiso (Calo et al, 2020;Millar et al, 2020), las habilidades sociales (Ford et al, 2018;MacRitchie et al, 2020;Millar et al, 2020), la calidad de vida (Fujita et al, 2016;Giuli et al, 2020;Sheppard & Broughton, 2020;Uhlig et al, 2016) y el interés por la vida (Johnson et al, 2020;Riggins & McLennon, 2020).…”