The Family Music Hub: Filling families with music and singing

Singing is an important part of daily life with young children. Early education music practitioners from TFMH update us on their initiative for parents and teachers.

KATIE GARNER PHOTOGRAPHY

Music is often an intrinsic part of family life with small children. Most parents (whether musically trained or not) would probably agree that music is an important part of young children's development, and that the benefits of music reach far and wide into all aspects of their lives.

So, it's no surprise perhaps that when families with young children congregate, music and singing tend to happen. Whether that's a five-minute singsong at the end of a toddler group in the local church hall, a ‘rhyme time’ session at the local library, or the franchise running groups in your local town, singing and music-making with parents or carers and infants is often a strong part of our culture around early childhood.

Those making music with families include children's centre practitioners, volunteers, parents, library staff, as well as music specialists. It is clear that the ‘non musician’ workforce is doing a large share of music delivery on the ground, and that often these practitioners are undervalued, paid poorly, given little support and receive minimal training. At The Family Music Hub we believe that this must change.

The current landscape

Recent research points to the important place music has in family life – for children as well as for parents and carers. The many benefits include developing speech and language, supporting infant and parental wellbeing, strengthening bonds and attachments between young children and the adults who care for them.

However, it's no secret that the family support sector is stretched and is seriously underfunded. Furthermore, the majority of practitioners (library staff, family workers, early years practitioners, volunteers, teachers, parents and musicians) who engage in Early Childhood Music (ECM) with under-fives and their families receive little or no support and most lack access to training. Practice rarely reflects or connects to the growing body of ECM research and, sadly, many practitioners, including educators and musicians, are unaware of the specialist skills and knowledge required for this undervalued sector.

Through good quality ECM it is possible to enhance infant and parental wellbeing, to empower families with musical tools and knowledge, to nurture listening and communication skills, to connect with, respect and celebrate diverse musical cultural heritages and to nurture bonding between young children and their caregivers.

And of course, alongside all these benefits, good quality ECM supports parents as they begin their child's musical education and pass on a love of music. When ECM for families is poor, these incredible opportunities are sadly missed.

The Family Music Hub

The Family Music Hub is a new initiative with a vision to change and transform the landscape of music-making with families.

Through supporting practitioners who work ‘on the ground’ with families, our vision is that:

Every family with children up to the age of five in the UK has access to meaningful group music-making experiences.
A family-centred approach to family music-making practice is established nationally.
The workforce is supported in their delivery of this vital work across the UK.

The Family Music Hub (TFMH) was founded in 2021 by Rosie Adediran, Nicola Burke and Katie Neilson who share a desire to put families at the heart of music sessions, to connect practice and research and to offer training and support to all those working musically with young children and their families.

What we do

The vital work of TFMH includes three interrelated strands:

We deliver continued professional development (CPD) and mentoring specifically targeted to those delivering ECM to the under-5s and their families/carers.
We seek to establish an online hub, bursting with practical resources such as a song bank and research-based information and resources, to support practitioners in their music-making with families. The hub will also act as a platform for a community of practice to develop across the sector.
We'll be conducting ongoing research to continually assess the needs of the workforce, test and refine our developing pedagogy, develop our CPD offer and to further explore the wonderful world of Early Childhood Music.

Together with our partners Early Education, and thanks to a grant from Youth Music, we have completed our first round of action research. We worked with librarians and family workers from the West Midlands, who deliver ECM as part of a wider offer for families with young children.

Research

As part of the research, we met with a group of library staff and family workers for three days in Birmingham. Together, they examined their beliefs about the nature of ‘music’ and ‘being musical’ and thought deeply about the role of music in their own experiences of parenting and/or being parented. They learnt about ECM research and explored how they might connect to this in their practice. Repertoire and activities that reflect TFMH aims were introduced, explored and discussed. We visited three of the practitioners to see how they were embedding the new pedagogy into their work.

Family support workers from Spurgeons, Birmingham, said: ‘The Family Music Hub has enabled us to upskill our knowledge around music delivery in the children's centres, and it has highlighted what we already do well but also what to reflect on in our delivery of practice. We have helped parents recognise the importance of musical play and creating an enriched environment for musical exploration in their day-to-day home lives.’

The backstory

Adediran, Neilson and Burke came together in 2020, having recognised their overlapping research interests as well as their mutual passion for family music-making to be valued and supported in the UK. Over regular Zoom meetings, they developed their ideas, and together founded The Family Music Hub. Between them, they bring more than 50 years of experience as ECM practitioners and each of them has undertaken valuable research that underpins the work of TFMH.

Rosie Adediran is an early years and family music practitioner, singer and songwriter. She loves to create new music with family groups, with a special interest in perinatal mental health. She founded the award-winning London Rhymes in 2015 – an initiative that involves collaborating with families to create new songs and rhymes. Adediran's research was supported by the Paul Hamlyn ‘Ideas and Pioneers’ fund and explored the nature of free or low-cost ECM in England in order to examine the aims, experience and needs of the workforce.

Katie Neilson is best known in the music education world for her work with Voices Foundation and her award-winning book Inside Music for Early Years. Additionally, she has also run her own ECM practice, ‘Little Bees’ in Hertford, for nearly 20 years. As part of Katie's MA research, she worked collaboratively with parents to explore a new model of practice that put them at the heart of a research-based ECM pedagogy.

Nicola Burke's groundbreaking MA research led to the development of the award-winning Tune into Listening project and her subsequent publication Musical Development Matters (2018), which is hailed as an invaluable document by practitioners across the country. Action research that Burke was involved with in 2019 explored context-blindness, musical diversity and inclusion in early childhood settings.

What's next?

In the coming year, TFMH aims to establish itself as an independent Community Interest Company (CIC) that in the long term will, we hope, become the go-to organisation nationally for anyone who wants to improve their ECM offer for young children and their families.

The Family Music Hub is currently applying for funds to develop and build the online Hub which will function alongside a flexible CPD offer that meets the needs of the different workforces and families.