MUSIC OF LIFE FOUNDATION
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Mission Statement
Our mission is to build and strengthen the life skills, well-being and confidence of disabled children and young people through music-making. Our vision is for all disabled children and young people to be able to access, and benefit from, music-making opportunities.
About This Cause
Music of Life is a specialist charity that supports development and well-being of children and young people with disabilities and special needs through provision of regular high-quality music-making opportunities. The unique feature of our work is continuity. We support our young people through weekly term-time engagement that spans many years. Positive impact can be traced at many levels – cognitively, physically, emotionally, academically, and socially. Furthermore, our activities positively affect wider groups – families, schools, local communities, and educational bodies. In our work we address inequality, injustice, financial and social barriers and lack of provision, skills and opportunities within the educational sector. All of these prevent children and young people with multiple and complex disabilities and special needs from accessing music making that is vital and, in many cases, transformational to their development. Our students come from disadvantaged backgrounds and many are extremely vulnerable and experience isolation. Our projects are based in London, the Midlands and North of England. We work with over 1200 direct beneficiaries each year on weekly basis during term time. On average, each individual is involved over four to six years, some for much longer. Overall Objectives: 1. Music of Life seeks improved quality of life for disabled children and young people through their long-term engagement in music-making activities. 2. All our programmes are designed and delivered by highly qualified and SEN-competent practitioners and underpinned by the professional excellence of our musicians and we see it as a mission of great importance to introduce as many new talented musicians as possible to working with SEN students. From attracting seasoned professionals with a wealth of experience to running courses at colleges and universities, we want to inspire and enable the growing number of qualified musicians to make working with SEN students part of their everyday professional lives. Our work The Need • Most of our parents face financial hardship – 82% of our beneficiaries are on pupil premium – and do not know where to look for qualified musical help. • Special schools lack the skills to run musical activities and/or are unable to pay for them. • Local music services lack funding and capacity to support music access for young people with special needs. • Professional musicians often lack the skills and confidence to work with special needs children. • Families lack the networks and capacity to access music-making activities. • Disabled children and young lack social networks and interaction with communities of interest. How we address the need • We develop and deliver expertly tailored music programmes in special needs schools and units and work with schools and communities that wouldn’t have access to music without our support. • We collaborate with local music services on provision of individual music lessons using their existing pools of competent music teachers and provide regular funding exclusively for special needs students. • We constantly grow our teams of music teachers and workshop leaders through our Teacher Training programme by introducing, mentoring, supporting and engaging musicians in our regular programmes. • Our projects run in special schools within school hours, which removes the challenge for families to facilitate their children’s access. • Our participants gain experience of collaborative work with mainstream schools through joint projects; join mainstream youth music groups with support of our musicians; get exposure to their local communities and forge friendships based on their musical interests. • All our services are 100% free to our beneficiaries. Impact and achievements Our charity has been delivering expert music services to some of the most disadvantaged children with complex needs and disabilities since 2003. Over the years, through ongoing weekly work in special schools and provision of individual lessons, through consultation with experts, teachers at schools, parents and students, through feedback and evaluation, we have been constantly evolving. Our programmes are uniquely tailored and fully accessible to every student we work with, whatever their needs may be. Our most recent evaluation round demonstrates outstanding levels of engagement in students who are within most hard-to-engage groups, including pre-verbal children and those with challenging behaviours (as reported by parents and teachers). Our programmes Over the last 20 years, our music teams have developed unique expertise in engaging children with multiple and profound learning difficulties in music activities. We have pioneered the weekly provision of music education for Deaf children, designed and led by professional Deaf musicians. We are now training professional music teachers and top music college students in working with disability to extend our programmes into more special schools and other parts of the country working in partnership with Music Hubs. Our programmes currently comprise: - Running choirs weekly in 10 special needs schools in Birmingham, Warwickshire and Cambridge. - Weekly classroom music sessions and 1:1 instrumental lessons in 6 schools for Deaf children in 5 London Boroughs and Hertfordshire. - Individual music lessons in London, Birmingham and Liverpool for over 100 students. - Performing opportunities in conjunction with our partner organisations. - Work experience opportunities for young musicians with disabilities. - Training for musicians in working with children with special needs (including project at the Royal College of Music, starting the 2nd year course in September 2024). Why continuity is at heart of what we do Community-based music can transform the lives of children with disabilities, but only if there is regular engagement. We work with children over several years to build incremental impacts and support them with enhanced vital skills as they become adults. The long-term nature of our activities makes us unique in terms of the depth and quality of our work. We provide a deeply impactful experience for our young people and the positive ripple effect can be seen both in their education and in their communities. When we start a new choir at a special needs school, many of the children find it difficult to engage, but, as the sessions progress and become part of their weekly routine, their engagement increases. Some children who would not be ready to make a sound in response to the leader at the start of term may be volunteering to sing a solo by the term end. Pre-verbal children who have very limited ability to communicate are given tools and encouraged to participate as much as they can using assistive technology, sign language and/or simple choice solutions. The most treasured and emotional moments we get to experience in our work is when through continuous attendance of our sessions participants achieve a significant breakthrough in their development. Examples include a pre-verbal young person spontaneously using their voice and verbalising during the session after many months of being silent in the sessions; Deaf and Autistic children from non-English speaking backgrounds using expressive language thanks to the concepts they learned through singing games, repeated sentence and rhythmical structures in our music sessions; an individual overcoming a restrictive behaviour pattern caused by severe anxiety, phobia or trauma. Examples on the latter include coming out of their room which they would previously restrict themselves to; talking to people other than their carer; expressing interest in social life through their musical activities. Our weekly sessions are fully inclusive, being open to every student irrespective of the level of their access needs. Most children find routine and predictability very soothing and reassuring, and children with complex mental and physical disabilities, especially those who are neurodivergent, are no exception. The sessions bring together the whole school for an hour of joy and fun and are hugely anticipated. Staff comment frequently on how the school atmosphere is better on their Music of Life days, describing the very special “buzz” we bring with us! Working consistently with our partner schools, we develop very close relationships with staff who attend the sessions with their students, and in some cases learn to use our approaches in their own classes. Music of Life is outstandingly cost-efficient. We don't have an office and our overheads are very low. We bring exceptional value for money, but as a relatively small charity we are constantly in need of new restricted and unrestricted funding to ensure we have means readily available to cover any shortfall in project costs and also flexibility to fund new projects and initiatives before raising any dedicated project funding. Our annual challenge is to be abe to sustain all existing programmes and also expand our provision to meet the growing need.