John-Walton: We feel like a real part of something else, something bigger than ourselves. And what that does for me, it takes me out of the negative.
Katy: What happens when you unleash the collective power of diverse communities, partners, research, and creativity? How can we unlock innovation across communities to build a stronger, fairer UK?
Welcome to the Creative Communities Podcast, a series platforming extraordinary examples of research partnerships using arts, culture and creativity to tackle the big opportunities and challenges facing our country today.
My name is Professor Katy Shaw, and I’m Director of the AHRC Creative Communities Programme, a national project exploring the potential of culture and cross sector co-creation to deliver inclusive innovation in the devolved contexts of our four nations.
In this new series, we’ll embark on a journey across the UK and hear from communities who are using their unique talents and expertise to take on tomorrow. We’ll explore how creativity and cultural research can empower us to build a stronger, more resilient UK.
Across the series, we’ll hear five stories of change, one from each of our Community Innovation Practitioners. Or CIPs for short. They’re based in Liverpool, Swansea, Glasgow, Belfast and Portrush. And they’ll show us how cultural research and development is helping to level up their communities. Each episode is packed with local voices, practical insights and solutions that you can use to inspire and create change and cocreation in your own community.
In this episode, we’re in Liverpool with Georgina exploring the Practitioner in Action and how the power of music can support mental health and wellbeing in diverse community settings.
Georgina: That’s my cello. It’s a very old piece of wood made in Paris in 1751. It’s been my working tool and companion for thirty years. Over the past two decades, it’s an instrument that’s been at the heart of so many powerful and truly meaningful connections in concert halls, hospitals, prisons, mental health units, and local communities across Liverpool.
Hello, I’m Georgina Aasgaard, Community Innovation Practitioner at the University of Liverpool. For the last year, I have been working in the long running partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Merseyside NHS Foundation Trust. My research addresses gaps in practitioner and community perspectives in the recent evaluation of their Music and Health programme.
The programme uses music to support wellbeing and recovery. And to develop confidence, skills and hope for the future in often marginalised communities. The evaluation of the partnership by the University of Liverpool shows clear success. However, globally, there remains an ongoing lack of knowledge and shared practice within creative health.
This is echoed locally through the need for more established data gathering methodologies that include more participants voices to be heard and valued. Not only that, but practitioners across the world need better infrastructures of training and support. My years of experience as a musician, working in mental health settings, has been crucial to address these challenges during my Community Innovation Practitioner research.
As a classically trained cellist. I’ve spent many years performing with symphony orchestras on grand stages, but as a Community Innovation Practitioner, or CIP for short, I’m building on my twenty years of experience working in a variety of social and health settings. I’m exploring how co-creation and collaborative music making can transform lives in Liverpool’s local communities, and the vital role that practitioners play in achieving this.
You’ve got your guitar, John. Why don’t we, you start something, John, talking of improvisation. And what would be really lovely is that if we just make a note…
My journey of bringing live music into mental health settings continues began in 2008 at the very start of the partnership between the Liverpool Philharmonic and Mersey Care. Before taking on my role as Community Innovation Practitioner, I was one of ten lead musicians delivering activities and performances as part of this partnership.
My research as a Community Innovation Practitioner has built on this experience. I selected three very different communities to explore musical co-creation for mental health and wellbeing. These are a community library, a high secure hospital, and a community pantry. In each of these settings, I co-produced a course of eight weeks with participants, ending in a co-created performance in front of a live audience.
By taking the same model of delivery into contrasting settings, my aim is to connect with wider communities and find ways to prioritise the voices of people with lived experience of mental health challenges in research partnerships. My position as a creative practitioner within the CIP research gives me a unique perspective on the relationships built during these eight-week courses.
Taking my practice into active research through collaboration and co production is key to unlocking knowledge on community needs. In this episode, you’ll hear from the participants, musicians and decision makers, who all form part of this remarkable relationship between the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Participants: I was transfixed going, ‘how amazing is this?’ Just this ordinary little cafe in the middle of Walton. It reaches parts of you that words can’t reach. It’s your emotions, it takes you right into your core and your soul. That’s what I really feel. I don’t know what I’d do without music to be fair, and I really do mean that. It’s a gift, it really is a gift.
Georgina: In part, this is the story of the Life Rooms, a unique social model of health to Liverpool, that’s part of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. The Life Rooms opened in 2016 and co-produced a programme of courses with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic as part of the partnership. And today, the programme is still going strong.
Michael Crilly is the Director of Social Inclusion for Mersey Care. He explains why the Life Rooms started.
Michael Crilly: The Life Rooms originally emerged as a response to service users telling us that yes, we want great clinical care when we’re in crisis. But actually, the real challenge for us when we’re beginning to move beyond the clinical crisis is how we then begin to go back into the world and take up our rightful place.
We help with a range of very practically focused issues. But one of our key focuses, is helping people to, discover learning that activates them around their own health, their own health and wellbeing, find new ways of communicating, new ways of giving, new ways of participating, and because they have all of that support around them in their community, they’re less likely to fall back into those services.
Georgina: In 2008, Liverpool was the European Capital of Culture. Fuelled by a city-wide desire to bring arts and culture to the people of Liverpool, including health communities, the partnership between the Philharmonic and Mersey Care began. Michael Eakin is the Chief Executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. I asked Michael what makes this programme so unique.
Michael Eakin: We view this programme as just a central part of what we do and who we are. We’re actually doing some audience research at the moment, and the one of the things that comes through most strongly, is we are part of not just the people are proud of us, but they’re proud of the city, and we are part of that, and I think, for me, it doesn’t matter how people interact with us.
They might be a regular concert goer. They might just come to a concert, once a year or once every two years. They might have a child in the youth company. They may be a parent of a child in Harmony. They may be a service user or a relative or somebody in this programme. Each of those interactions is equally important.
Each of them is about local people, as well as people from further afield finding value in their lives through Liverpool Philharmonic. We’re not doing it, just for our own pleasure. We’re doing it to have a positive impact on an audience, on a participant, on a service user in the NHS that builds, buy in for the organisation with the city council, with the NHS, with individual members of the public. And of course, through this programme, without a doubt, we are reaching people. who we would not otherwise reach at all.
Georgina: My Community Innovation Practitioner work is timely as there is still so much to explore in community outreach and how we show the impact of these programmes to decision makers. The existing work needs to be put in an academic framework so that we can share and co-produced knowledge and make sure services can be valued, sustained, more accessible, and expanded.
With this in mind, I selected three very specific settings that are geographically spread across the city. I reached out to two brand new life room settings, a community pantry, close to the city centre, and a high secure hospital. The third setting is a community hub based in an old library in Walton, North Liverpool.
This is where the very first Live Rooms opened. The Hub in Walton is a welcoming space with a café. It’s here where participants are often already gathered, enjoying brews, strumming guitars, singing together in a warmup session, even before I get there. It’s this openness and friendly atmosphere that’s truly special about the Live Rooms. Let’s hear from our participants in Walton. This is what they have to say about their experience of my co creation research activities with them.
Participants: I’m fairly new here. I heard about it at an open day, a community open day, and I walked in thinking I was going to be entertained by loads and loads of Philharmonic.
And I thought, where are they? Wait a minute. It’s a guy with a guitar… is this it? And then he walked out. I thought, that can’t be it. And then when you started and you spoke, I just felt embraced in this amazing group energy. The next thing I was singing a song, I thought, wait a minute, I’ve not been singing for ages, what’s this?
I felt embraced, encouraged, included, valued, listened to, appreciated, and it just ticked all my boxes, so I’ve been showing up every week.
For me, it’s given me so much confidence, it’s brought back my love of music, I’ve made loads of friends, I’ve learnt new skills, I’m now going to things at the Philharmonic, it’s just opened up a new world. I met some wonderful people.
For me, it was very much about opening up old books, and then revisiting them and looking at them at a different light, I think one of those situations where you close your eyes and listen. I always remember a session that we went to once, and, and Georgina was just like sitting. I said, you alright Georgina? And she’s like, I’m listening. And I said, oh, okay.
But you know when you’re actually watching somebody listening, because you’re just automatically do it. But the skills of actually listening to a piece of music and how that can unfold and open up your imagination, certainly for me.
Georgina: I think this mutual, deep listening to each other, for me has been like really key to the process of working together.
John-Walton: The genuineness of like, the musicians and that really endears us to coming to the group, we feel like a real part of something else, something bigger than ourselves.
And what that does for me, it takes me out of the negative that I might be thinking and brings me into a different realm, a positive realm. And when you start feeling good about things like that, eventually the good outweighs the bad and you can lift yourself out of a depression. It really is enlightenment from the darkness of the world and whatever’s happened in here, we can be lifted and it’s a joy really.
Georgina: So, what does that process look like when musicians connect with local communities through co-creation? Here’s Claire Henry, the lead musician at the Walton Life Rooms.
Claire: The co-creation at Walton really comes from discussions and, chatting to the participants and, and getting a real sense of who they are and what’s going on for them at the moment and what they might like to express. So, it’s very personal to everybody that is participating and everyone has got that sense of ownership within the music and we understand together why that music is like it is.
Nothing is imposed. It’s really personal. All from them with guidance and shape from me. So, I will gather lots of creative material with the participants and have an inspiration point of a piece of music. And we’ll have very interesting chats about what that music has inspired and stories that might come up around what that music has evoked.
And we go from there. So, a complete blank canvas. So, it was very much going in from a story angle and gathering stories and then turning that into music. And we’re all sharing those stories and then musically linking them together. So, it becomes a much bigger event. It becomes a much bigger piece of music than just that one story that’s perhaps started the thread.
Georgina: This year of Community Innovation Practitioner Research has given me the opportunity not only to discuss processes and stories with colleagues like Claire, but also to reflect on the key approaches that have been driving my research activities. This has informed my unique framework called the Five Cs of Practice.
Connection, collaboration, creativity, commitment, and care. Co-production and co-creation are the foundation of my CIP work and helped me to navigate across a wide variety of community spaces, which you will hear about throughout this episode. These activities couldn’t happen without the support of the Life Room staff.
Here is Simone Lister, a key member of the team who has been supporting the Music and Health programme since it started at the Life Rooms in 2016. For Simone, the collaboration with professional orchestra musicians is really important.
Simone: I think a lot to do with the fact that we’re working with a Philharmonic, the fact that we’re working with professional musicians, and what I mean by that is that their quality and their expertise enables them to provide humility and modesty as they run the sessions and provide an opportunity for learners that come in to really build on confidence and to give them self-expression. It’s unique, in the sense that it’s very inclusive.
Georgina: Here’s Michael Crilly from Mersey Care again. He gives a broader perspective on this.
Michael Crilly: Very many of the people that we work with through Mersey Care and the Life Rooms, they have very low expectations of life and services. They’ve almost been dehumanised by a system. If you’re giving them The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, you’re saying you are worth this quality. You deserve the best.
Now, that’s hugely powerful for people who actually don’t have much in the way of hope. For me, the fact that it is this world class brand is so important. I think that’s really, really crucial.
Georgina: You’ve heard from our partners about the power of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic as a name. But what does the Music and Health Programme and my research activities mean to the Philharmonic?
Nicola Hobson is the Learning Projects Manager at the Philharmonic. Nicola has been instrumental in managing the Music and Health Programme. I asked her about the values and skills explored in this unique partnership over the years.
Nicola: We have some really solid principles that are the pillars of our programme which are around honesty, communication and trust. I believe that we should be equitable. All of our programmes are for long term because we know actually it takes a long time to build trust, to be embedded within systems.
And I think part of that is creating an environment where people feel that they can be honest. Regardless, that we all have a voice in the team, we’re not a hierarchy.
Georgina: What would you say are most important skills for musicians to have to go and deliver these kinds of courses we do at the Life Rooms?
Nicola: A willingness to be flexible, responsive. Our motto in the team is expect the unexpected, because we are human beings working with other human beings. That huge amount of dedication and passion for their instrument. How they can draw on all of that. and bring that in with them. And then I think there’s also something about kindness and being a human being in that space.
There’s that democratic approach and also taking people as they are. We don’t know anything about the people that we work with unless they share it with us. And that is really important. At that moment in time, we’re all just people in a creative space.
Georgina: Let’s go to another creative space that I’ve been co-delivering sessions in. The evocative piece of music you’re hearing is a musical reflection composed by a patient in a high secure hospital. It’s inspired by the classical cello music I played during the sessions, and by the expertise of composers they met too.
The piece reflects the moonlight, and it’s called A Sleepless Nocturne. The Live Rooms arrived here in May 2023, to build a new sense of community amongst the most vulnerable and restricted people within Mersey Care to people who have no access to a local community, just like in other settings, it’s a place for connection, for learning, and for creative expression.
Using the same model of delivery as the other settings, I co-produced an eight-week course with the participants. The sessions were inspired by live cello music and other instruments. They built a space for trust, respect, individuality, and creativity. Together, we explored some classical repertoire, as well as improvisation through sounds and words, creating a platform for self-expression.
This inspired the production of new music compositions, co-created pieces of music, words, and even artworks. The finale was a powerful on-site performance. We invited clinical and technical staff from the wards, as well as academics, to celebrate the patient’s achievements.
Ian Stevens is a visiting musician here. He’s a composer and plays keyboard and double bass. He explains what it’s like being a musician in a setting like this and working closely with the patients.
Ian: It’s a combination of being really comfortable with the instrument that you’re playing, but also, it’s the adaptability and not having a preconceived notion of what it is.
It’s also a real openness to people who are in a very different place in their life to where you are. Again, a lot of it’s about adaptability and flexibility, but also sympathy and empathy for where people are coming from, an openness to other cultures, an openness to other ways of being.
Georgina: Confidentiality is paramount in this high security setting, and our collaborative working has presented some ethical challenges. While we can’t share recordings of participants, Ian shares some of his favourite moments of working with them here.
Ian: One of the jam sessions just got so exciting. He really started quite intricate, quite quiet, and it built right up. We were having really good fun on our instruments, all without deciding what was going to happen, what journey this piece was going to take.
Also, the whoops and cheers that came from his co-patients at the end and the staff members that were there. Everyone was like, that was fantastic. So that I think that would have given him a real boost to have that response coming from that really good fun jam session.
Georgina: That shared journey through improvising and responding to each other was such a significant part of the process, both for the participants and for us as practitioners.
Here’s Michael Crilly again, explaining the power of live music in a high secure setting.
Michael Crilly: I’ve seen this so many times where you’ve played in night stations for people in seclusion. It’s a high secure hospital, it’s a very secure environment. It can feel as though lots of your liberties taken away from you. It has been taken away from you. Everybody who comes across, to deal with you may be taking notes or they’re coming to treat you, to do something to you. I think when the music comes into those environments, it comes to be with them. And there’s no hierarchy, and that somehow reaches to the humanity that maybe they’ve lost because of the tragic impact of their mental health crisis.
Georgina: Michael goes on to tell me about the real benefits he’s seen on service users across all the Mersey Care settings.
Michael Crilly: I think it’s beauty. I think it’s, actually, we are more than a mass of cells. We are more than a diagnosis. We’re more than the label of service user and carer. There is the whole is greater than the sum of those parts. And I think music does something to both. connect with that, to make it real, to bring it to life. I mean, I’ve walked into Lee Valley Millennium Centre, and I’ve seen you playing the cello there in the cafe area to a group of pensioners who’ve probably never experienced this music before, and they’re entranced. It connects with them at a very human level. I think the power is actually, you humanise a situation.
Georgina: Come with me now to hear from another life room site in a different part of Liverpool. St. Dunstan’s Church is a beautifully refurbished hall in Liverpool’s Wavertree neighbourhood. This ethnically diverse community with students and residents is home to one of the Life Room’s newest settings. Every Wednesday, just fifteen minutes’ walk from the Philharmonic Hall, the Life Room social inclusion team creates a welcoming space for those accessing the church’s community pantry.
This is the first time that the Music and Health programme reaches out to an ethnically diverse community. So, my research activities here are a crucial pilot project that I am exploring as a Community Innovation Practitioner. The collaborative music sessions take place in a smaller, more intimate chapel with glass walls.
Here, a vibrant mix of participants, from Roma communities to those from Poland, Italy, China, and Europe. The Middle East, Albania, Trinidad, and Granada, they come together each week. While some attend consistently, others join in as their number is called for food collection.
One of those is Vasco from Italy, and I asked him what music he likes.
Vasco: What music I like?
Georgina: Yes.
Vasco: My genre is heavy metal. Yeah. But I like, other singers like, Zucchero, Ramazzotti.
Gaston: And you think it’s nice to come to music here?
Vasco: Yeah.
Gaston: Yeah. Did you enjoy, listening to different instruments?
Vasco: Yeah. I enjoy because I appreciate other genre of music. I not listen them usually.
Gaston: Yeah.
Vasco: But is good to listen to other genres of music.
Georgina: Leila Saeed is the social inclusion lead for the Live Rooms, and she speaks to me online about bringing these brand-new Live Rooms and the music sessions here to St. Dunstan’s.
She’s witnessed firsthand how the power of live music has brought diverse people together.
Leila: There’s one service user that I felt like, really came out of her shell from the beginning when she was quite upset to actually singing on stage. That is absolutely phenomenal. Also, there was another service user when I was on duty one day supporting on site and who just hovered round the door, didn’t actually attend. By the end, learning session, he was involved in the sessions. So, it’s increasing their confidence. And then I think the other, the third thing I’d say is the community cohesion of all these different nationalities coming together, which is, again, very, very inclusive, very and absolutely, amazing outcome, just to have that, there was all those different nationalities come together to share music.
Georgina: It is so inspiring to hear about the impact that music can have on people’s confidence and on people like Hamed from Iran who shares with the group a song that his father composed. The song is called Walking in the Rain. Here’s Hamed singing it for us.
Hamed Singing
The Life Room Music Sessions wouldn’t be complete without our visiting musicians who play, improvise and experiment with our participants.
This is Mandy Belleville, a clarinettist, who shared her expertise and musicianship with the group at St Dunstan’s.
Mandy: We, the musicians, we obviously have our skills, but It felt like that was by the wayside, we were there as human beings and, we were responding to each other in the best way that we could.
And some of us would happen to be highly skilled on our instruments and others didn’t, but it didn’t actually matter because we can just work together in that way. It felt like a true collaboration.
Georgina: Like Leila, she’s also seen the impact music has had, not only bringing people together, but again, encouraging a newfound confidence.
Mandy: It was incredible actually, there was one lady who sang some opera, and it was just amazing seeing the transformation from her being quite timid and small and then she bloomed and it was like sunshine. It was incredible actually, the energy that came from her singing and it felt like she really got back in touch with herself somehow, like there was a lot of scope for improvising and it felt like it was a real equalizer. And I love the opportunity to improvise in that way.
Georgina: There are so many examples of authentic human connection that come from the music sessions. These also have an impact on the decision makers here too. Let’s hear from the Chief Executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Michael Eakin.
Michael Eakin: When I see some of those service users who’ve had real challenges in their mental health, for example, having the bravery actually, and being prepared to expose themselves to standing in front of an audience and singing or talking or playing a musical instrument.
That’s an incredibly brave thing to do, I think, particularly when, as in some cases, as you know, they’ve talked very personally about themselves. And what you observe and, talking to them sometimes after the performances is that this is that opportunity for them to express themselves through the medium of music or poetry is incredibly powerful.
Georgina: The stories from the co-produced music sessions at the Live Rooms in St Dunstan’s, Walton and the High Secure Hospital do paint a powerful picture. Participants talked about gaining confidence, being given a voice and a choice, enabling self-expression, having ownership, an opportunity to learn skills, manage their own health, be respected, trusted, heard and valued.
Collaborative music making strengthens communities and fosters wellbeing and collaborative partnerships and relationships build more trust over time. So, it’s all about creating opportunities for moments of human connection. Collaborative music making has the power to turn isolation into togetherness.
There is no judgment, no hierarchy in co-creation, and that somehow reaches to the humanity people may have lost because of their mental health crisis. At St Dunstan’s, I asked Mandy, our professional clarinettist, how she felt about the moments of human connection that she has experienced.
Mandy: It was humbling for me to be in the company of people who’ve experienced such difficulties and felt like I was really in the in the real world in a sense that you certainly don’t get in the concert hall generally. It felt so much more meaningful to be working with people in that space than it does with the traditional classical audience. But also, for me, I find that improvising enables me to really be my authentic self.
And in being that in the company of others, it makes for me very, very strong connections and it feels amazing. It feels like I really touch humanity, both in myself and in others. It feels like the centre of humanity is suddenly available.
Georgina: So, what impact do these deeply human experiences have in a wider sense. Here’s Leila Saeed, the Social Inclusion Lead from The Life Rooms.
Leila: I think it’s so important if, like, organisations such as the Philharmonic and similar come in and deliver sessions to the communities because they’re not accessible to our communities, particularly our deprived communities or our ethnically diverse communities, if that makes sense.
For me, I’m a public health background, so prevention is so important to me. So, if that can lift somebody for one day or a week, and that’s the highlight of their week, because economically they’re not able to travel out or they wouldn’t walk into the Philharmonic in town. I think that’s really, really important and we can only do that in partnership really. I think working in partnership across the board with all services is absolutely crucial if we want to reduce health inequalities.
Georgina: You’ve heard about the power of partnerships for successful co-creation, leading to extraordinary outcomes for the communities we serve. As we’ve heard from participants, musicians, staff and stakeholders, there is a resounding agreement.
Bringing collaborative music making and co-creation into local communities has immense positive effects and benefits. Through deep listening, connection and collaboration, I’ve seen patients in a high secure hospital sign up for music theory grades and compose pieces of music through creativity, I’ve seen community members writing poems and producing artworks inspired by music.
Through commitment and care, I’ve seen orchestra musicians being transformed by the experience of sharing their passion with local communities. I’ve seen the bravery of service users standing on the stage at the Philharmonic Hall, opening up about their mental health. I’ve seen staff discovering a different side of their patient’s personalities.
I’ve seen management teams work together to make their programme sustainable. Last but not least, I’ve heard participants say you have saved lives. However, the complex web of relationships in collaborative and partnership working faces many hurdles, with funding being the biggest challenge.
Following my Community Innovation Practitioner year of research and having conversations with people, several questions arise about building meaningful, productive and sustainable creative communities.
How can we improve infrastructure and communication between arts institutions, the NHS and universities? How can universities meet the needs of practitioners who provide crucial data to advance mental health research? How can we inform more community members about these live changing opportunities and what methods will help us genuinely listen and value experts by experience?
Claire, the lead musician at Walton Life Rooms, wonders if there’s an opportunity to connect with other practitioners and programmes to support each other’s work.
Claire: A lot of the people we work with can be facing challenges at the time. So really, making sure they’re comfortable with the amount that they’re giving and not asking too much. But at the same time, I think it’s that being inquisitive about people and just wanting to learn about people and then develop all of that learning and put it into the music. The common threads between the practitioners and really finding a direction that we’re all going in and sharing that process. So, the common threads between the early years work or the dementia work and the music and health work, how do they connect together and how do they then connect with the wider orchestral programme within the orchestra. So, if we could put that under one bigger umbrella that we all are working in a similar way, I think that would be a really exciting thing.
Georgina: Mandy, the clarinet player from St. Dunstan’s, would like the opportunity to get to know our service users better, to really enhance the human touch that we’ve heard so much about in this episode.
Mandy: I think it’s great to have different musicians going in so that the people who use the Food Bank can get to know people and have a sense of ownership of the orchestra, if you like, that it’s their orchestra. They know the people, so you can’t underestimate the importance of that human connection and of people getting to know each other and being able to trust each other. I wonder if there’s something to be gained from making more of the opportunity to speak to people before doing the music together so that you have a relationship with people before they then have to make that journey from the church into that little room.
Georgina: But what about the decision makers? While challenges do exist, they also present opportunities for growth. Here’s Michael Crilly, Director of Social Inclusion for Mersey Care.
Michael Crilly: I think I’d like to see it go further into the community as we’ve talked about. I’d love to see The Phil as one of the more significant brands and organisations in the cultural scene. Use that power and influence to help other smaller grassroots organisations as well come to the fore and play a part in their local community as well.
Georgina: Michael Eakin, Chief Executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Michael Eakin: Well, I mean, the obvious barrier is always money and expertise, but money in particular.
I think as an organisation, we’ve been pretty good at finding the money and sustaining it. And obviously this programme has been going fifteen years now. So, you know, That’s a measure of success. We probably still have work to do, although I think we’ve made good progress on this, at getting across to people the power of and the importance of this kind of work.
I suppose the challenge with a programme like this is because of the sensitivity of it. How do you get across the impact of some of the really challenging sessions that you’ll do when those are very private things and there’s a degree of confidentiality and so on. So, finding a way to tell that story to make sure that the resource continues to be there and even to make it grow, I think is doable, but I think there’s still some way we’ve got to go there.
Georgina: This is Richard Kemp. He is the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. He explains how to influence policymaking and ensure the scalability and sustainability of our music programmes.
Richard: You need to find a way of introducing academic rigour into this process to say I can show you. So, I think now is the time to go on the attack in the nicest possible way.
Get more people who are decision makers and influences because there’s a difference between the two understanding what those are go and bring these facts into everything we do as a council because the council is the most important place for stopping people becoming ill. And I would be presenting a series of challenges from your knowledge about how to do these things, back to the council, back to the health service, back to the police service, back to the fire service.
You’ve got a basis of proof to go out to the council with. I think you need to get it out there. I think you need to be much more assertive. And I recognise you are the best orchestra for doing this that I’ve come across and I have asked about at it, but still too few people understand what you do and therefore they don’t understand what you could do. So, you need to be out there mixing it and fixing it.
Georgina: These powerful testimonials we’ve heard are like pieces of a complex jigsaw. But how can we ensure all these pieces come together to create a comprehensive picture. This is where practitioners, with their invaluable experience and listening ears, can play a crucial role.
Through co-production and collaborative working, practitioners can bridge these gaps and challenges.
Professor Josie Billington is part of the team leading the University of Liverpool’s evaluation of the fifteen years partnership between the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Mersey Care. In our conversation, Josie says that practitioners bring firsthand knowledge and expertise, and they bring data and evidence that cannot be accessed in any other way.
She also says that the practitioner is uniquely positioned to intensify and widen the impact of the research findings by directly disseminating them amongst colleagues and partners. I asked her how she sees the role of practitioners in bridging these gaps to make sure that these programmes reach their full potential.
Josie: It’s hugely important. The impact and benefit of arts and culture happens at the point of delivery through the practitioner. And that’s true even where the impact on the individual person is felt long after the moment of delivery itself. It’s impossible to leave out the role of the practitioner in understanding how the arts affect mental health and wellbeing.
Georgina: To build creative communities, we need to recognise and value the expertise on the ground to make a difference to people’s recovery journeys in the here and now.
The Community Innovation Practitioner Pilot has enabled me to take my practice into active research to create a new knowledge through collaborative music making about the benefits and challenges of co-production and cross sector partnerships.
However, the bureaucratic structure of universities can cause a challenge for practitioners, as practitioners may prioritise real life stories over theoretical frameworks. Universities need to better understand the challenges practitioners may face balancing their ongoing freelance commitments with academic responsibilities.
But most importantly, through my CIP research, participants raw voices have been valued and heard through co-creation and co-produced performances. May now these voices, sounds, and music be heard, valued, and funded by policymakers. As I close this episode, the five Cs of practice resonate through my cello. Connection, collaboration, creativity, commitment, and care.
Could such a framework help us codesign environments of mental wellness and connectivity? Could it help us develop relationships in the community and think collectively about mental health as a shared responsibility. Through the five Cs of practice? Could we prevent people falling into crisis and access a landscape of preventative care that is purposeful, meaningful and productive?
Participants: This is so beneficial to everybody because I think it feeds your soul in a way that medicine doesn’t, and I mean that for me from the bottom of my heart. It’s been the single thing that has helped me heal with mental illness, with depression. And I just can’t imagine what my life would be without music.
We need to give people purposes that there is a life out there. And I think the world says it all, doesn’t it? It’s about life. This is a room for you to discuss life.
John-Walton: The word hope really springs out to me. I think it’s a wonderful word. I think, I think what we do here is brings hope, which is a tremendous springboard to life.
Georgina: Rhonda, do you have anything to add? Any punchy message to all policy makers.
Participants: Just to say that music, singing, instruments, collaboration, brings joy, fulfilment, delight, pleasure. The world’s in such chaos and turmoil, and these pockets of joy to be treasured, encouraged, and, yeah, financed. Bring the money on, keep it going.
John-Walton: A nice phrase, that, pockets of joy.
Participants: Pockets of joy, I like that, yeah.
John-Walton: Pockets of joy in a coat of love.
Participants: Aww. What an amazing way to finish. That’s clever.
Katy: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Creative Communities Podcast.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Creative Communities Podcast, please like, follow, and share it with your friends and colleagues.
The more we can share these stories of resilience, collaboration, and creativity, the more we can empower other communities and cross sector partners to get involved with research and development. And create a more inclusive innovation system for the UK.
You can hear more about the work featured in this episode, get further information about the AHRC Creative Communities programme and find out how to get involved by heading to our website, Creative Communities UK.
We’ve also included all the links mentioned in the episode in the show notes.
You can like, follow on your favourite podcast platform to be the first to hear all five episodes from Series One.
We’d love to hear your feedback via the website and watch out for an announcement about CIP Round Two coming soon. Because inclusive innovation matters, and that means research that is by all, for all.
The Creative Communities Podcast is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council via the AHRC Creative Communities Programme at Northumbria University with podcast production and training by MIC media.
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