Introduction The first 1001 days of life, from pregnancy through age two, are critical for child development and family wellbeing, yet are marked by vulnerabilities and inequities in access to care.Theory Creative health approaches, such as musical care, may support wellbeing while addressing these disparities. Using a mixed-methods survey approach, this article aims to understand the barriers, facilitators, and opportunities to equitably accessing/providing musical care activities during the beginning of life in the UK.Method Two online surveys were completed. One by 578 parents/caregivers and another by 50 providers of musical care activities. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and regression models; qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis.Results Barriers and facilitators were identified across three themes: resources and logistics (cost, proximity, timing), inclusivity and diversity (cultural fit, awareness, personal preference), and coordination and collaboration (training, organisational links). Overall, parents/caregivers expressed interest in more opportunities for participation. However, significant barriers - particularly cost and availability - limit access, especially for lower-income households. Providers highlighted the need for sustainable funding, training, and better collaboration. Facilitators included free or subsidised sessions, inclusive practices, and linking with existing services.Discussion Findings underscore the need for local, affordable, and culturally inclusive activities, alongside coordinated strategies to scale musical care equitably across the UK.

To what extent do different people find the same moments in a music therapy improvisation session salient, and how similarly or differently do they interpret the same moments? Four half-hour sessions at a music therapy center between different trained music therapists and musically experienced first-time attendees were videorecorded. Immediately after the sessions each participant watched the video of their session individually and commented on the one to five moments that struck them as most noteworthy. For each session, two other participants—one trained music therapist and one other musically experienced observer—also watched the videos and commented on one to five noteworthy moments. An online questionnaire for each session was subsequently created that included all four participants’ comments (anonymized and edited for ratability) and the corresponding video segments. Each participant individually rated the extent to which they agreed with all the anonymized comments about their session. Analyses focused on the extent to which different participants selected the same moments as worthy of commentary, their levels of endorsement of comments originally authored by participants in the different roles, and overall patterns of rating agreement between participants in the different roles. Overall levels of agreement were low, but across the four sessions the trained music therapists’ judgments tended to be more aligned with each other's, with some asymmetries: Session music therapists endorsed statements by the commenting music therapists more, but not the other way around. There was also evidence for greater agreement between session outsiders (commenting music therapists and commenting observers) than between session participants (session music therapists and attendees). In fact, by some measures session attendees’ interpretations of what happened were particularly different from everyone else's. The findings are not consistent with a view that everyone is likely to see the same thing in a video clip of a moment in music therapy.

When people sing together, they are likely to experience a sense of enhanced closeness. This study explores the extent to which that feeling of closeness is affected by how in tune singers are with each other. Pairs of same-sex strangers (N = 162) with a broad spread of backgrounds and singing abilities either sang a familiar song together ('Happy Birthday') on first encounter or played a cooperative card memory game. Both activities resulted in an enhanced sense of connection between participants even though the singing bout (at ca. 30 s) was significantly shorter than the card game. The quality of joint singing (in terms of fit between participants' tuning) did not significantly influence its bonding effects, suggesting that the social effects of singing can be independent of its quality. Singing together may be of more significance as a social act than as an appealing sound.

This article sets out a collective vision for a new Music and Parental Wellbeing Alliance. It starts from the premise that challenges to parental wellbeing represent a persistent, global concern. When unchecked, these challenges can lead to negative consequences for the whole family. Music is common in the lives of many parents around the world; yet despite emerging evidence, it is not yet considered as an option in most parental care pathways. To address this requires a collaborative approach, leading to the founding of the Music and Parental Wellbeing Research Network in 2023. As a network comprising of parents, musicians, music therapists, healthcare practitioners, researchers, arts leaders, and policy experts, we set ourselves the task of proposing and setting out a direction for the field of music and parental wellbeing. We embarked on agreeing the key steps needed to advance the field, and the driving principles underpinning such endeavor, arriving at a vision for our ongoing work: To enable, sustain, and expand an international and interdisciplinary community that works towards ensuring that all parents have the opportunity – and are empowered and equipped – to engage with music that can support their wellbeing. In this short article, we articulate a mission for a new Music and Parental Wellbeing Alliance that is focused on achieving our vision through SHAPING evidence and practice, SUPPORTING professionals working in the field, and SHARING the potential of music in supporting parental wellbeing. We invite readers to join us in progressing this mission.

The first 1001 days of life are a critical time in children’s development and can be challenging for parents and caregivers. Some families in the United Kingdom (UK) are not getting the support they need. Research indicates that musical care – the role of music in supporting any aspect of people’s developmental or health needs – can support families during, what we term, the beginning of life: pregnancy to two years of age. Musical care activities can take place in health and community settings and include music making, music listening, and music therapy. We must describe and understand the patterns of use of musical care activities during the beginning of life in the UK to capitalise on the potential of musical care to support families. This article explores, from parents’ and musical care providers’ perspectives, (1) participation and provision of musical care activities, (2) descriptions and experiences of musical care activities, and (3) motivations for, deterrents from, and perceived outcomes of participation in musical care activities. Data from two co-developed cross-sectional surveys for parents/caregivers (N = 578) and providers (N = 50) was analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Most parent/caregivers had participated in at least one musical care activity (83

Abstract Chapter 5 reports on the co-construction, testing, and evaluation of an online songwriting intervention—Songs from Home—that aimed to reduce loneliness and symptoms of postnatal depression (PND) and enhance social connectedness. The chapter describes the co-construction process and key characteristics of the musical practice, as well as evaluation and research findings. The chapter illuminates how Songs from Home can facilitate four goals—comfort and safety, feelings of achievement, connection, and adapting to individuals—and address loneliness, social connectedness, and symptoms of PND among women in the perinatal period. The chapter concludes by noting that Songs from Home was highly recommended by those who participated in it, with the potential for refinement and scale-up.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the creative and cultural industries have been closely tracked by researchers, professional bodies, and arts organisations. In the period of recovery that has followed, emphasis has moved towards building a more inclusive and sustainable industry. Yet beyond the headline statistics, accounts of the support needs of creative workers - as identified in their own words - are less forthcoming. This paper reports on open responses collected during April-May 2021 as the United Kingdom began to lift lockdown restrictions. Thematic analysis of responses identified three overarching themes identified by respondents as central to sustainable recovery: (i) Financial Infrastructures; (ii) Artistic communities; and (iii) Future-proofed professional landscapes. The findings support previous research that has emphasised the need for recovery to prioritise supporting individual artists and the importance of freelance voices at all stages of policy and decision making to ensure equitable development for the future.

In recent years there has been a surge of research on arts professionals' livelihoods, with particular focus on experiences of work and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, using the HEartS Professional multi-strategy survey, we collected data in three phases in the United Kingdom (UK): initially during the first national lockdown (Phase 1, April–June 2020; Spiro, Perkins et al., 2021), and then annually for two years; Phase 2 (April–May 2021; Spiro, Shaughnessy et al., 2023), and Phase 3 (May–July 2022). In this article, we focus on Phase 3. Our first goal is to explore which factors are important in the context of mental and social wellbeing (measured using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the 15-item Social Connectedness Scale-Revised, and the Three-Item Loneliness Scale). Our second goal is to consider how work and wellbeing are associated with job satisfaction. Physical activity, social activity, financial stability, and health are significantly associated with mental and social wellbeing for the 564 professional artists in the UK who responded to our survey, and there are links between mental wellbeing and job satisfaction. As the creative industries emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and tackle ongoing challenges, a longer-term approach in this area is needed: one that allows a more holistic understanding of the contributors to arts professionals' work and wellbeing. Informed by the data collected in Phases 1 to 3, where we see consistent trends, we propose a conceptual model – the HEartS Professional Model – for understanding the drivers that are associated with arts professionals' wellbeing and job satisfaction. Within this model, the variables can be seen as part of wider domains: broad thematic groups including community (including perceived social connection and living situation), healthy living (including self-rated health and physical activity), finance (including financial hardship and household income), and demographics (including gender and age). The HEartS Professional Model has the potential to inform development of support, policy, and infrastructure in the creative industries that are fit for purpose and respond to creative professionals’ needs. Furthermore, it has the potential to be the basis for the long-term tracking and understanding of work, wellbeing, and job-satisfaction in the arts.

This article explores the characteristics of arts professionals’ work and health during the COVID-19 pandemic in China and how these relate to measures of mental and social wellbeing. Findings from two separate samples of arts professionals (Phase 1: August 2020, N = 500; Phase 2: October 2021, N = 500) using the HEartS Professional: China survey suggest that approximately half of the respondents experienced financial hardship as a result of the pandemic (58%, phase 2), were more anxious (47%, phase 2), and lonelier (43%, phase 2) than before. In regression models, better self-rated health was associated with higher mental health and social connectedness scores and lower depression and loneliness scores in both phases. More physical activity during the last month was associated with higher mental health and social connectedness in at least one phase. While rates of anxiety and loneliness were lower than in an earlier HEartS Professional Survey in the United Kingdom, some associations in the regression models, such as for health and physical activity during the last month, were similar. Longitudinal and international research on work, wellbeing, and retention of arts professionals is important for public policy and understanding variability across social and cultural contexts and systems.

This article focuses on behavioral markers-changes in communicative behaviors that reliably indicate the presence and severity of mental health conditions. We explore the potential of behavioral markers to provide new insights and approaches to diagnosis, assessment, and monitoring, with a particular focus on music therapy for depression. We propose a framework for understanding these markers that encompasses three broad functional categories fulfilled by communicative behaviors: semantic, pragmatic, and phatic. The disordered interactions observed in those with depression reflect changes in many types of communicative behavior, but much research has focused on pragmatic behaviors. However, changes in phatic behaviors also seem likely to be important, given their crucial role in facilitating interpersonal relationships. Given the strong phatic element of music-making, music represents a fertile context in which to explore these behaviors. We argue here that the uniquely multimodal and profoundly interactive environment of music therapy in particular allows for the identification of changes in pragmatic and phatic communicative behaviors that reliably indicate depression presence/severity. By identifying these behavioral markers, we open the door to new ways of assessing depression, and improving diagnosis and monitoring. Furthermore, this markers-based approach has broad implications, being applicable beyond depression and beyond music therapy.

In this paper we report on the inaugural meetings of the Musical Care International Network held online in 2022. The term “musical care” is defined by Spiro and Sanfilippo (2022) as “the role of music—music listening as well as music-making—in supporting any aspect of people's developmental or health needs” (pp. 2–3). Musical care takes varied forms in different cultural contexts and involves people from different disciplines and areas of expertise. Therefore, the Musical Care International Network takes an interdisciplinary and international approach and aims to better reflect the disciplinary, geographic, and cultural diversity relevant to musical care. Forty-two delegates participated in 5 inaugural meetings over 2 days, representing 24 countries and numerous disciplines and areas of practice. Based on the meetings, the aims of this paper are to (1) better understand the diverse practices, applications, contexts, and impacts of musical care around the globe and (2) introduce the Musical Care International Network. Transcriptions of the recordings, alongside notes taken by the hosts, were used to summarise the conversations. The discussions developed ideas in three areas: (a) musical care as context-dependent and social, (b) musical care's position within the broader research and practice context, and (c) debates about the impact of and evidence for musical care. We can conclude that musical care refers to context-dependent and social phenomena. The term musical care was seen as useful in talking across boundaries while not minimizing individual disciplinary and professional expertise. The use of the term was seen to help balance the importance and place of multiple disciplines, with a role to play in the development of a collective identity. This collective identity was seen as important in advocacy and in helping to shape policy. The paper closes with proposed future directions for the network and its emerging mission statement.

Numerous UK surveys conducted during COVID-19 examined the pandemic's detrimental effects on health, and the consequences of lockdown and other public health restrictions on mental health. Some surveys considered specific populations and social inequities exacerbated during COVID-19. Fewer surveys examined the ways in which the adverse effects of public health restrictions, such as lockdown, shielding and social distancing, might be alleviated. Drawing upon self-determination theory, the purpose of the current study was to assess whether culture-, health- and nature-based engagement would mitigate the effects of these restrictions on psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness. Quantitative data from a smaller-scale survey (n = 312) and a subset of questions embedded in a larger-scale survey (n = 3647) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate methods. Frequency of engagement, whether participation was online or offline and with or without other people, and the extent to which type of participation was associated with psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness were examined. Sports and fitness, gardening and reading occurred frequently in both surveys. For the smaller-scale survey, increases in connectedness and frequency of participation and decreases in loneliness were significantly associated with improved wellbeing, whereas the type of participation and age range were not significant predictors. Outcomes from the smaller-scale survey approximated the larger-scale survey for measures of loneliness, type and frequency of participation and proportion of respondents in each age range. As the frequency of participation was a significant predictor of wellbeing, but the type of participation was not significant, the findings implied that any type of participation in a sufficient quantity would be likely to boost wellbeing.

Objective: Loneliness is a public health challenge associated with postnatal depression (PND). This study developed and tested an online songwriting intervention, with the aim of reducing loneliness and symptoms of PND and enhancing social connectedness among women with young babies. Study design: This was a two-armed non-blinded randomised controlled trial (RCT, ISRCTN17647261). Methods: Randomisation was conducted in Excel using a 1:1 allocation, with participants (N = 89) allocated to an online 6-week songwriting intervention (Songs from Home) or to waitlist control. Inclu-sion criteria were women aged & GE;18 years, with a baby & LE;9 months old, reporting loneliness (4+ on UCLA 3-Item Loneliness Scale) and symptoms of PND (10+ on Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale [EPDS]). Loneliness (UCLA-3) was measured at baseline, after each intervention session and at 4-week follow-up. The secondary measures of PND (EPDS) and social connectedness (Social Connectedness Revised 15-item Scale [SC-15]) were measured at baseline, postintervention and at 4-week follow-up (Week 10). Factorial mixed analyses of variance with planned custom contrasts were conducted for each outcome variable comparing the intervention and control groups over time and across baseline, Weeks 1-6 and the follow-up at Week 10 for each outcome variable. Results: Compared with waitlist control, the intervention group reported significantly lower scores postintervention and at follow-up for loneliness (P < 0.001, 712P = 0.098) and PND (P < 0.001, 712P = 0.174) and significantly higher scores at follow-up for social connectedness (P < 0.001, 712P = 0.173). Conclusions: A 6-week online songwriting intervention for women with young babies can reduce loneliness and symptoms of PND and increase social connectedness. & COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Society for Public Health. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial effect on the creative and cultural industries in the United Kingdom (UK), as seen in our first snapshot of the HEartS Professional Survey (April-June 2020, Phase 1, N = 358). By analysing data collected one year later (April-May 2021, Phase 2, N = 685), the aims of the current study are to trace the contributors to (1) arts professionals' mental and social wellbeing and (2) their expectations of staying in the arts. Findings show that artists continued to experience challenges in terms of finances, and mental and social wellbeing. Over half of the respondents reported financial hardship (59%), and over two thirds reported being lonelier (64%) and having increased anxiety (71%) than before the pandemic. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models, using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Social Connectedness Scale, and Three-Item Loneliness Scale as outcome variables, indicate that perceived financial hardship continued to be associated with higher depression and loneliness scores. As in our first study, more physical activity before lockdown was associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, and higher self-rated health scores were associated with higher wellbeing and lower depression scores. Similarly, increases in physical activity during lockdown, as well as older age, were still associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores and with lower depression and loneliness scores. An ordinal logistic regression model indicated three contributors to artists' professional expectations of remaining in the arts: greater proportion of income from the arts pre-pandemic, continued maintenance of skills, and greater proportion of freelance work. The results suggest that the wellbeing patterns observed at the start of the pandemic remained consistent a year on. They point to possible strategies to support wellbeing and underline the importance of finances for expectations of remaining in arts professions.

OBJECTIVES:This study investigated how adults in the United Kingdom perceived their arts and cultural engagement to facilitate social connectedness over two phases in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. STUDY DESIGN:The study used the HEartS Survey, a newly designed online survey tool to capture arts engagement in the United Kingdom and its associations with social and mental well-being, over two phases in 2020: March to May (Phase 1) and October (Phase 2). METHODS:Qualitative data were provided at both phases by 581 respondents, who identified which arts and cultural activity they felt most connected them to others and how during the last month. RESULTS:Thematic analysis revealed that, at both phases, arts and cultural engagement was perceived to facilitate social connectedness through four pathways that were also identified prepandemic: social opportunities, sharing, feelings of commonality and belonging and collective understanding. The subthemes shed light on specific ways that respondents used the arts during the pandemic to connect with others, including using the arts: as a catalyst for conversations, to maintain, reinstate or strengthen relationships during social distancing and to facilitate social interactions (Theme 1); to bring people together through shared experiences and sharing of art (Theme 2); to elicit feelings of direct and indirect proximity to others, to connect people with common interests, to feel a sense of belonging to something and to feel part of a collective 'COVID-19 experience' or to feel collectively distracted from the pandemic (Theme 3); and to learn from and about other people and to relate to others (Theme 4). The activity most frequently cited as connecting was watching a film or drama, followed by listening to recorded music. CONCLUSIONS:Engagement in arts and cultural activities supported feelings of social connection among adults in the United Kingdom over two phases in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the importance of access to the arts and culture to support social connectedness.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the arts sector, disrupting livelihoods and professional networks and accentuating the instability that is common for creative workers. Gaps in support for grassroots organisations and freelance workers have highlighted structural inequalities within the industry, and the significant challenges for individual workers in the early stages of their career. Yet, the pandemic has also emphasised the importance of the arts as a community resource and its role in supporting wellbeing and togetherness. This qualitative study explored the experiences of the pandemic for early career arts workers, focusing on its impacts upon their livelihoods and how it has shaped their future career directions. Sixteen arts and cultural workers across a variety of sectors including theatre, film, circus, music, and literature participated in solo, semi-structured interviews during April–June 2021. Thematic analysis identified three overarching themes: (i) ‘Pandemic precarity and creative practice’, (ii) ‘PostCOVID I: Inclusivity and diversifying audiences’, and (iii) ‘PostCOVID II: Adapting, developing, and disrupting cultural practices’. Overall, the experiences capture an early career workforce that, while committed and engaged with their creative practice, also seeks a more equitable, fairer, and diverse industry that protects artists and engages more flexibly with broader audiences.

To what extent do classical chamber musicians converge in their characterisations of what just happened in their live duo performance, and to what extent do audience members agree with the performers’ characterisations? In this study a cello-piano duo performed Schumann’s Phantasiestücke, Op. 73, no. 1 as part of their conservatory studio class in which members critique performances in development. Immediately after, the listeners and players individually characterised what had most struck them about the performance, first writing comments from memory and then marking scores while listening to a recording on their personal devices. They all then rated (on a 5-point scale) their agreement with comments by two other class members. Findings demonstrate that classical chamber performers can characterise the performance quite differently than their partner does and that they can disagree with a number of their partner’s characterisations, corroborating previous findings in case studies of jazz performance. Performers’ characterisations can overlap less in which moments strike them as worthy of comment and in their content than their listeners’ characterisations do, and they can agree with a non-partner’s characterisations more than with their partner’s characterisations. At the same time, the data show that listeners who have played the piece before—though not necessarily those who play the same kind of instrument (strings vs. piano)—can be more likely to endorse comments by others who have also played the piece before, even if the comments they make don’t overlap with each other more in timing, content or theme.