Beat Route

This is an anonymous Case Study on S and demonstrates the power of music.

S is 15 years old and lives in residential care.

The first night we arrived to run a music session, staff at the home wanted a quick word with us, to let us know that S had been angry all day causing her not to go to college and ten minutes prior to our arrival, was screaming the house down.  Staff said she would probably not take part in our activity as she was too angry.

Staff explained that S struggles with anger management and suffers huge outbursts of rage which impacts greatly on staff, her peers and her own well-being.

The anger is triggered by trauma and comes from the primitive part of the brain that processes fear, triggers anger and alerts humans to danger and activates fight or flight responses.

As soon as we arrived, S popped her head in to our room to see who we were and what we were doing.  Within five minutes of being in our room and after us explaining what instruments we had and what we were going to do, S was eager to try everything!  The session began with S creating a track using live loops on an iPad using Garageband, then she created a rhythm on drums and finished with learning how to record and produce music using Logic.

We had a ten minute break during the session and a Key-Worker came in to chat to us.  She just couldn't believe how relaxed, calm and engaged S was in our session.

The evening meal was served at 5pm so rather than leave without doing any Arts Award paperwork, we asked if it would be ok if we sat at the table whilst everyone ate. Whilst staff and S ate their tea, together as one big team (us, staff and S contributing), we achieved Arts Diary Week 1 and Arts Hero.  

Upon talking with the manager of the residential home, she explained that by taking part in our music sessions, S was able to manage her anger better.  The sessions were supporting NLP work that she was doing with a specialist.  This work was using repetition and rhythms to support a new way of thinking and reacting.  The manager claimed that our music sessions were helping S cope with anger and that by being part of our music group, was helping her make friends and to feel confident in herself.

Seeing how relaxed S was in our session and hearing from the manager the benefits of music re her well-being is proof that our sessions are important in supporting emotional development.