Leading Music Groups - WILD Young Parents Project
A blog about starting a new role and leading music sessions with young parents.
Starting any new job can be a challenging time. You have just been through the stress of the interview process and then have to meet and adapt to a new team of people and get to grips with what your role will be and how you will prove it was the right decision to hire you!
I think that within the creative arts there is the added pressure of judgement of your artistic skills. It might be that this is a self imposed pressure that is not coming from your employer , service users or the team but in fact from you yourself.
As a musician that whilst training has been surrounded by talented instrumentalists and vocalists, it is sometimes easy to forget your own skills and that not everybody can play instruments and that this is actually something quite special!
When starting my job role I was struck by the boots I was trying to fill. Sometimes it is easy to get bogged down with trying to be the person that did your job before you.
I quickly realised when working with the young parents attending WILD music sessions that actually, they respond to you being genuine, consistent, open, approachable and honest with them. By using humour I was able put not only theirs but also my anxieties at bay and start forging a relationship with them.
By being yourself and using your artistic skills, (whether musical, dance based or art based) in a genuine way, the young parents will hopefully see something in you they can respond to and feel safe with.
Working with young parents from challenging backgrounds I have found it useful to not push too hard. Some may find being a larger than life presense works for them but I feel that whatever your natural personality may be, this is the best way to be with them.
By realising this I was then more able to have confidence in myself and start bringing my own ideas and musical approaches to the group.
It may be obvious but so often young people may have experienced inconsistent, insincere relationships and it can make such a difference to them to be part of a consistent trusting relationship. One of WILD's objectives is to help parents form secure attachment relationships with their children and I feel one of the best ways to do this is give them positive relationships as a model. If you have never experienced a secure attachment relationship before it is much harder to build one yourself.