With an award from The Baring Foundation (Creatively Minded and Ethnically Diverse Call), Yaram engaged singer song writer Namvula Rennie and partnered with Diversity Matters (Mindful Mums, South East London Mind) and Roehampton University (Prof Lauren Stewart and Ms Lottie Anstee) to create a universal (ie suitable for all) programme to support postnatal mothers from culturally diverse communities.
We conducted focus groups with black african, afro-caribbean or mixed heritage mothers from the local community to understand their experiences of motherhood, their coping mechanisms and the extent to which music played a role in supporting them.
We also conducted participatory theory of change workshops with these women, as well as other community and organization level stakeholders to inform the development of the programme.
This resulted in the creation of Tune into Motherhood, a 5 week programme designed to lift mood, build social connections across the group and provide some musical tools for women to use to connect with and play with their infants. The programme has been running since 2024, with ongoing evaluation and refinement. Sessions are carefully curated to balance musical activities and facilitated discussion, with each week focusing on a different topic related to the culturally diverse experiences of early motherhood.
The inclusive and accessible musical content is flexibly pitched at a level to include all levels of participation, building confidence and ownership across the five sessions. The musical activities include learning songs, somatic meditation exercises while listening to music, sound games, poem writing and creating a shared playlist with music from diverse cultures.
'Music is so regulating for me....I remember describing it as: we don't play until we feel safe, and music is a great way to hack that'
Participant quote
'Once those [musical activities] were completed, we noticed that the mums had been given a bit of space to then vocalise some of the things that they were struggling with. We found that a lot of more embedded emotions, buried emotions, were coming out from these musical activities [enabling self-expression]'
Programme delivery staff
THIS WORK IS PART OF AN OVER-ARCHING PROGRAMME OF WORK EXPLORING THE ROLE OF PARTICIPATORY MUSICAL PRACTICES, INCLUDING IN WEST AFRICA, SOUTH AFRICA AND LESOTHO IN SUPPORTING MATERNAL MENTAL HEALTH.
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