Bullfrog Arts: Foster Carers Choir
It’s 2013 and we’re really looking forward to developing a singing group that we set up in Leicester in the autumn of last year.
We were fortunate to secure funding from Youth Music to develop a new strand to our work with Looked After Children.
Background Whilst we’ve been running singing projects for Looked After Children we know that a positive way to get children singing at home and to embed it fully in their daily lives was to engage with their foster carers. In the past we’ve run singing training days for foster carers and demonstrated how music can be used to help young people deal with and express their emotions. We felt it would be great if this could become a regular occurrence rather than just the occasional one off event. And so we set up a foster carers choir which has since run for 10 sessions.
The format: We meet weekly at a city centre theatre at noon. After we’ve all gathered in the café we proceed to the rehearsal room and engage in a few vocal warm-ups, learn a few new fun songs aimed at young people and enjoy some of our favourite action songs. We break for lunch and then re-group to work on a number of pop songs / spirituals to satisfy our adult singing needs.
How is this singing group different from any other? As adults coming together we all have our stories to share but you quickly appreciate that the lives of these foster carers are concerned with dealing and coping with highly sensitive issues on a daily basis. They’re caring for the most vulnerable young people and somehow, with minimal guidance, do an amazing job of absorbing them into their lives and giving everything they can to provide love and stability. To say the sessions were emotional would be an understatement. So it was essential to create a safe and supportive environment which ultimately is down to giving space for relationships to develop. The singing group for some was the only ‘me’ time the carers had and provided an opportunity to share stories, issues and highlights. It was essential we allowed the space for this to happen, particularly in the early sessions.
Issues faced… Due to the hectic lives of foster carers it’s been difficult to find days and times that suit everyone. Whilst lots of carers were interested, many have to take their children for contact time with their birth parents and so it’s been hard work to muster up numbers of singers. Similarly, many carers look after at least one child as well as their own children which means the days are spent dealing with the logistics of childcare so are unable to commit to attending a group every week. We ran the sessions in such a way that anyone could join us for any amount of time and were welcome regardless of their long term commitment.
Highlights… In December the Foster Carers Choir sang at an event attended by 400 people in a local theatre. This was a massive achievement – in just 10 weeks we’d progressed from a few nervous faces to a body of 8 singers who had the confidence to get on stage and sing to a huge audience a-capella and in 3 part harmony.
One of our carers would bring along her foster baby every week and we’d all sing to her. It choked us all to see her grow and respond so positively to our singing. She has been responsible for making us all broody and gooey with adoration and we all hope that the singing she’s experienced from the first few weeks of her life will have some peaceful and positive impact on her chaotic young life as well as form a chapter in her “Life story book,” to take with her when she is finally adopted.
The future… We’re still a humble group of six carers and two Bullfrog leaders but we’ve come a long way on an incredible journey. By hook or by crook the carers choir is determined to continue and so we’ll be looking to put in further applications to make sure that the group continues to grow and flourish.