Up Tempo, music engagement project for young people in touch with mental health services
Up Tempo is a project running inat South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, in partnership with The Hive in Shrewsbury and Make Some Noise in Stafford. the aim of the project is to build on pilot projects involving the use of music, engaging with a wide range of young service users who are in touch with our services. the beauty of the Youth Music funding is the ability to have weekly sessions running across out Trust inpatient facilities and in the community - allowing us to have more impact and to fully evaluate this delivery.
The sessions take place in ward settings as well as in community settings. Each session has a different flavour according to the particular lead musician on that day and also the participants who attend. We have a great team of musicians and shadow musicians - and there has been over 35 songs written so far since late 2016. Some of the music created is an instrumental mix with layers of different sounds, instruments and beats, whilst in other settings acoustic songs with lyrics and basic guitar instrumentals have been the trend. We are going to be showcasing some of the work created in the sessions and illustrating the workshops, sharing feedback at our AGM on Wednesday 13th September (at our Trust HQ St George's Hospital, Stafford). this has been such an exciting project to run at our inpatient facilities, and the level of engagement has been excpetional for group work. Our community settings are also taking off with our younger service users from our Camhs department.
Great feedback from participants: Thank you for all that you do, there’s nothing more healing than music!; I really enjoyed the group today. It helped keep my voices in my head away for a bit so well done; Look forward to it every week. Nice and accepting of anxiety. Built my confidence in singing and social interaction. Very fun; I absolutely loved the Up Tempo group today. I have never been involved in writing a song before and I have enjoyed it so much. Thank you to everyone involved.