Musical Care

Musical care at the beginning of life in the UK: Exploring experiences and policy recommendations

Musical Care seeks to expand, and build evidence and policy for, the important role music practices can play in the first stages of life.

Musical care practices play an important and expanding role throughout the life course, and have particular value at the beginning of life. These can include mum and baby groups, music therapy in neonatal intensive care units, and much more. While there is now a substantial evidence base for some of this work, availability of musical care is not equally distributed around the UK or across the various stages of the beginning of life. Activities are not always clearly visible to those who might benefit from them and there remain barriers to participation.

This research project explores the experience of, and barriers to, musical care during the beginning of life in the UK with the goal of informing processes and policies for spreading and embedding musical care during the beginning of life more widely the UK.

Project team

Neta Spiro, RCM (PI)
Elizabeth Coombes, USW
Helen Odell-Miller, ARU
Rosie Perkins, RCM
Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo, CHIR
Emily Tredget, Happity

Research associate

Caitlin Shaughnessy, RCM

Research assistants

Debi Graham, RCM
Mark Rowles, RCM
Berenice Beverley Zammit, RCM

Supported by

British Academy/Leverhulme Trust
RCM Knowledge Exchange Fund
RCM Policy Support Fund

Learn more

Read more about the Musical Care project.

Buy the book Collaborative Insights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course.

Publications will be posted here in due course.

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