The numbers given by the Sing Up Foundation are stark. 50 percent of mental health issues are established by the age of 14 and 75 percent by the age of 24. So what's one of the ways that we can help support children and young adults in improving their mental health, I wonder? Well, I think I've got one.

The benefits of singing for well being and mental health are all over the research.

And so it's with great pleasure to welcome Baz Chapman and Celi Barberia from the Sing Up Foundation to understand how they are flying the flag and hoping to create a healthier world through singing and song making.

Alexa: Baz, can you help us understand how SingUp and the SingUp Foundation came to be?

Baz: Well, Sing Up originally was the government's national singing program for primary schools and it responded to a thing called the Music Manifesto which said that music making in schools and outside of schools was [00:01:00] brilliant in some areas but patchy in others and that really singing should be something right at the core of certainly primary education if not wider.

That was in 2007 and there was a huge Investment from government in making that happen. And we made enormous strides to get singing back into primary schools and to overcome, particularly for teachers actually, a sort of a fear of singing and try and normalize it. Sing up. doesn't have that government funding anymore, but it still carries on providing a a brilliant service to schools and a huge song bank and other resources.

But the foundation came about because Sing Up wanted to have a more charitable approach to singing, particularly in the sphere of mental health and wellbeing for children and young people. And as we found over the past few years, that's. turn from being an area of concern into a real crisis. And so the work of the foundation is sort of looking to address that and [00:02:00] understand more about how singing can benefit mental health and well being.

Celi: and you know what, it actually really naturally came out of the work of Sing Up. I mean, the foundation's kind of purpose came really naturally out of the work of Sing Up because we found in the beginning with Sing Up that You

know, we kind of started hearing from schools that there were all these amazing benefits that the kids were getting from singing like, you know, they were getting to getting along better on the playgrounds that there was just all the confidence the behavior that and all of that really started to come out.

And come back to us and sing up in the very beginning of the program. And so we really started to recognize that like, yes, we thought singing was brilliant always, but that there were all of these other amazing benefits to singing. And so then later when we started the foundation, it was just really natural for us to make it about singing for mental health and wellbeing, because it, that's something we just felt was just so critical to [00:03:00] highlight is that these You know, the benefits to young people are incredible.

Alexa: Describe the mission overall. What would you say that

Celi: is? I would say that the mission of the foundation is really to promote and to advocate and to create opportunities for young people to experience the amazing benefits of singing on mental health and well being.

Alexa: You have a podcast called Inspiring Voices and last year I think you had a Professor Graham Welch, if I'm not mistaken, on your podcast talking about research.

So what do we know about singing and its impact on well being and what is the most recent things that you've come across which talk about how children and young people who are affected by mental health can be supported through singing and music making?

Baz: Graham Welsh actually carried out a really [00:04:00] major piece of research into the work of Sing Up, to look at the, what happens when you provide that comprehensive a kind of a singing offer and he found that there were a number of benefits, um, but just the act of singing on a regular basis was not only increasing things like self efficacy and a sense of community within the school but also young people's singing development, their ability to use their voice for singing was so much greater because it's an instrument that's, designed for regular use particularly when we're young.

And that was a really profound thing. And I think in a way that's. That's been the most important piece of research for us. This, Graham talks about this all the time, just normalize it, normalize singing. Yes, by all means, you know, have groups that work to a higher level, focus on individuals and small groups and big groups and sing in assembly, as long as it's there and it's [00:05:00] present and nobody thinks it's like a weird or exposing thing to do.

you can achieve amazing things with it. I would say also that we refer a lot to some of the more scientific stuff. So we know that there is a lowering of cortisol that can happen through singing. So that's a stress hormone. And there's the release of Certain hormones, like, endorphins, which is your kind of feel good, serotonin, which is around mood oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone.

Those are kind of the good things that can be released through the act of singing. So I think, for me, those are some of the most important ones. Celia, you got any to add?

Celi: There's an amazing research, uh, piece that was done. I think I remember Daisy talking to us about it, but it was around it was around The Choir With No Name, which is the choir that works with homeless people. And that choir, they found that 60 percent of the people who had been involved in that choir then went on to get jobs to have more stable housing.

The involvement of being in the choir, of [00:06:00] all the benefits that came from being there together and singing together regularly actually ended up helping them to increase their confidence, their self advocacy, and then help to get them into a place where they were able to get housing, get jobs, get volunteer opportunities , to move forward.

And that's just so incredible, really.

Alexa: So how has SingUp and the foundation influenced the education in schools? And what was the implementation through it?

Celi: wow. I mean, this goes back into real SingUp history, we really believed in the power of singing and we wanted from the very beginning to try to find ways to get singing.

We, we used to call it sneaking it into the school day. So we tried to do that. We know we, we tried to promote things like singing routine songs. So, uh, like tidy up songs singing songs for when you're doing the attendance in the morning. So for example, things like Tidy up now tidy up now toys away, or, [00:07:00] you know, even just singing the attendance I remember Graham Walsh used to always say about doing the Daisy Daisy song, but doing it with the attendance so, and then your response would be, you know, so things like that.

So you would try to sneak little bits of singing like Baz said earlier, normalizing singing. just making it part of every single day. And all of those little tiny things that you add into the day can actually start bringing things like pitch awareness,

start teaching rhythm, like all of those little tiny bits of learning actually happen undercover.

Um, and that's what's so special about some of the ways that we snuck singing into schools all the time. From the very beginning, there were also things like the singing playgrounds project, which was run by ex cathedra, but which we really helped to promote through the magazine and through the website, which is singing in the playgrounds, which did incredible things for Bringing real cohesion into [00:08:00] playgrounds and building sense of community.

And so we had schools coming back to us being like, since we've had a singing playground, there's like less fighting, less bullying. I mean, it's just incredible sort of magic that you can bring into your school. Baz, do you want to take it from there?

Baz: I think there were, yes, there were some more overt educational approaches that we took as well.

So singing to support the curriculum, to support language development, songs about history and that kind of thing, I think worked really well for teachers who were thinking, well, actually, how can I build it into my day? there was stuff around actually there was stuff around different kind of moods and occasions which I suppose in a way paved the way for the for the beginning of the foundation where we were looking at moods that might you know things to I don't know mark moving on at the end of the school year or things songs for celebration or songs that Draw attention to things like neurodiversity and that started us thinking about actually, what does that look [00:09:00] like for deeper kind of mental health conditions?

So there, there are songs that can work for moods and general well being. But actually, what if we're looking at early life trauma or long term life conditions? So that kind of led to the sort of natural evolution into the work of the foundation.

Alexa: I find all of this really interesting in terms of how we can almost revolutionize the educational experience by using song, and there's a particular primary school teacher who often pops up on social media, he's got quite a following, and his name is completely falls away from me now, which is a shame on the spot, but he often shares how he gets the attention of his class through songs.

So instead of, you know, shouting or calling Oi, he'll do Who Lives at the Bottom of the Sea? And then the kids will do SpongeBob SquarePants, or he'll

do maths with Taylor [00:10:00] Swift songs. And you can see actually, all of the kids are pretty engaged, they do listen, or their attention is This refocused through song rather than a disciplinarian type, shout.

Celi: You know, that's another thing from early Sing Up days is that singing voice carries much better than screaming voice, and it's much healthier for a teacher to sing. To get . Kids attention than it is to scream. And then, cause we know that actually in the teaching profession that like vocal harm is so high.

So many teachers harm their voices by trying to get ahead of all the kids screaming in the playground or in their own classrooms and just singing some of those directions can already just cut through so much better.

Baz: Yeah, I think there's also the thing about neural pathways, in the same way that, that particularly music therapists might use singing to bypass damage areas of the [00:11:00] brain.

Similarly, if you're being engaged in a different way from being spoken at, sometimes it can almost kind of trick you into jumping in and committing or engaging in a way that you might not otherwise. And we see that manifested in so many different ways. You look at, we talk a lot about, people who say they can't sing, but then on a, maybe on a football terrace, there'll be singing at the top of their voices because there's something to do with that kind of collective response.

And we love that. We love the fact that it seems to have this kind of magic power to bring people together and to do something which always feels positive. One of our podcast guests was saying, you couldn't go to a war with someone if you've been singing with them because you've made a connection in a completely different and I think more profound kind of a way.

So we're really into that and really into finding out more about how that works.

Alexa: I'd really be interested to know from both of you, how your backgrounds and your experiences with music or in other [00:12:00] areas of work, how that's influenced what you do at the foundation.

Baz: Ooh, wow. That's really interesting.

I mean, I can certainly speak from the experience of working a lot with choirs both as a writer and arranger and an accompanist and very occasional conductor. But certainly as a participant in I sang with the, the main Ex Cathedra choir, which is a sort of semi professional, very, very high achieving.

And I also sang with a community choir and loved both of them for massively different reasons, but constantly find the well being benefits being so obvious. The community choir that I accompany in our local village you know, people talk really openly about what it means to them. , when you capture that harmony or the, you get that bit right You can see it in their faces, how much of a difference it's making to them, but they will often, you know, just write things to say how, how much they're getting from it.

So I think for us, when we're [00:13:00] maybe looking at an end user that is a bit more distanced from that, maybe not quite so connected with their singing or their kind of vocal voice, if you see what I mean. How do we get them to that point? And that may not be as simple as going, here you go, here's a choir, go and, go and start singing.

It may take something a lot more sophisticated, perhaps to kind of, to get through to them and get them into a place where they're comfortable using their singing voice in order to release some of those feel good things.

Celi: This is such a tough question. I think I've just been a singer my whole life.

I've been in choirs my whole life. I love singing. I love music and working in music education. I was able to start working at youth music, and I just, it was just a path that kind of took me along to where we are now. And I've always just been such a huge proponent of everyone having the opportunity to [00:14:00] engage and to love music and singing and to it's just a beautiful thing.

And I think it's always just been for me a thing about kind of opportunity, but now I think I have kids too. I see how much Giving them space to be creative, to be themselves, to have a voice, they quite often just sing all the time, like literally all the time. My I was saying to my son, he He brushes his teeth, and here is the sound of the Sonicare toothbrush, and he thinks it sounds like a bagpipe, so he sings bagpipe songs to him brushing his, so the whole time he's brushing his teeth, he's singing a bagpipe song, because he thinks the toothbrush sounds like a bagpipe, but I mean, my kids just sing all the time, and I just think that's wonderful that it can just be part of developing who they are, and their voice, and I just think that's wonderful.

Great. And I want everybody to have that chance.

Baz: But I do also feel and to a [00:15:00] degree empathize with where that hasn't happened, where singing hasn't particularly normalized. I certainly remember in my teenage years being just so self conscious about singing, someone would go, Oh, what's that tune?

And I go, Oh, I can't remember. Because I just, Oh God. And I'd be happy to sing in a choir, but I just. I just didn't want to be heard solo. And I think you do go through phases in your life where you do feel a bit more exposed sometimes. But then equally, I know of people like Celi who were, with their kids, they just started them from day one, you know, probably pre day one with singing.

And when that happens, it feels like it's a kind of a different ball game really. And I wish that for everyone. I'm also a co founder and manager of the National Teachers Choir. And that's a really interesting thing, looking at how teachers engage with singing. In this choir, it's mostly a thing to it's an escapism.

It's going and doing something with like minded individuals. But equally, yeah, just. the [00:16:00] thought of kind of singing either in front of their peers or in front of their young people can be really terrifying. So again, that goes back to that thing of stealth and are there ways to get them more comfortable?

Maybe it's a chant or something like that, um, to start with before actually using the kind of the singing voice. So we're really, we're constantly looking At how we can kind of reach more people and get rid of that Unnecessary fear of singing whilst recognizing that it's probably always going to be around as long as we can iron out anyone ever saying to someone you can't sing or your tone deaf or or you know You aren't mine or go to the back because we know that those scars are absolutely lifelong ones if you've ever been told that

Celi: We were talking about this last week in a podcast recording about anthropologically humans have been singing since we could before we could speak before we had like language that we shared humans were, you know, sharing songs together that [00:17:00] songs and music have always been a part of human life.

And it's just amazing to think that, you know, parents would sing with their babies, millions of years or thousands of years ago and it's incredible that we still do that today. And that people sing when, I remember I can't remember, Baz, I'm sure you remember her name, June, who was at that event we went to, and she was talking so beautifully about how people sing when people are dying and how that helps to bring someone to their death, hearing the voices of the people they loved.

And it's just so beautiful to think that actually before we had instruments, we had the ability to make music with our voices and Everybody should be able to do that and should feel confident doing that. And it's beautiful.

Alexa: I feel like this discussion also lends itself to maybe some experiences that we now have with things like social media.

So in, in this day and age, and I [00:18:00] feel really old saying it, even that phrase in this day and age, we are almost led to believe that our worth is based on how beautiful the world sees us. how beautiful we're deemed in society. And singing can sometimes feel the same with some people, with, well, if I can't sing beautifully, or if it's not, it doesn't sound good, then there is a knock on effect on how much joy it can bring.

But how do we, or how does the foundation help us to embrace singing, regardless of whether it is deemed a beautiful sound? Because beauty is beautiful. in the community and you can make a beautiful sound together. But I just wonder what your thought is on that, Celi, in terms of your kids are enjoying singing and when you didn't mention about it being, a beautiful sound or pitch [00:19:00] correctness, you know, we're always looking to make it this aesthetic.

So how do we help people to embrace singing when they might perceive it to be not beautiful, but still have a joyful experience?

Celi: Actually, that's really, it's a really good point. And it's one of the things we always have said that's so powerful also about group singing, because if you are singing in a group part of the beauty of singing in a group is that if you're sending, standing next to someone who's a stronger singer than you, it will make you a stronger singer.

That actually hearing the sound You know, it helps you in your own singing too, to sing next to other people, but I think also I guess the, for me, the thought the benefit of singing is the beauty of making the sound of breathing. You know, we know that actually singing helps you increase your breathing to help you regulate your vagus nerve.

There's [00:20:00] like all of these benefits that are actually like physiologically , good for you. And that doesn't have to do with whether or not you're singing perfectly in tune and the best song. And you sing like Christina Aguilera, that has nothing to do with that. That's just about you enjoying the moment.

And there is also something really beautiful about singing as a mindful activity, because you're using so much of your body when you're singing your thing, you're using so much of your brain to be in time, you're using your breathing, you're using your vocal cords, you're using, there's so much of you, this goes

into the actual production of sound, but it actually helps you to be in that moment much more than so many other things that you can do in life because you can't be like, did I forget my keys at home? Have I got to go and buy milk? You can't do that because you're in that moment and just enjoying the sound of the thing that you're doing.

And there's power in that in singing as a [00:21:00] mindful activity.

Baz: there's an interesting kind of counter movement going on in music education, which is around inclusion and around recognizing that no matter who you are, you should be able to be involved in, in musical activity without fear of judgment or whatever. Even to a point of kind of considering what we mean by excellence.

So even the top youth choirs who, some of whom may have. may have found themselves being looked at from a point of view of, are they diverse enough? Are they inclusive enough to the kinds of people? Do they have the right breadth that are representative of the population? And looking at are we still defining excellence by something that is based on, a tradition that is a hundred years old?

Society has moved on from that. We need to look at, what we produce through different lenses and not always assume that, if it's not in, for example, the English choral tradition, it's somehow not good or not as [00:22:00] good. So I think there's that. I think there's getting more people involved in it.

But then there's the thing that we talk about all the time, which is safe spaces. And by spaces, I don't mean just the physical space. I mean, the actual, the whole environment in which the singing can take place. That applies if you're dealing with someone, for example, who might've had early life trauma, where actually there might be a singing activity you know, maybe a songwriting session, for example.

where they are, directly tapping into emotions from their past, which could be really powerful and potentially significantly triggering right through to actually that kind of sense of every day where everyone can sing and no one's going to stop. pointing fingers and going, yeah, you don't sound like Aguilera or if someone, you know, can't necessarily pitch match exactly first off, they don't get told not to take part because we know that actually by taking part, that's their best chance of actually being able to fix that.

I've also had experience in community choirs of people seeking out singing teachers [00:23:00] because they've realized that actually they do need more

help to be able to reach a level that they feel comfortable with. And that's brilliant. You know, that's great. That's people kind of self identifying and wanting to self develop.

And those things are brilliant. So I think we need to have a much better understanding what we mean by excellence now, so that there isn't that kind of sense of exclusion. or competition we want people, young people to be singing into their phones onto social media and not doing it with a fear of, Oh gosh, am I going to get, positive or negative comments, but just because it's part of who we are.

Celi: Also, I remember really powerfully We had an we, on our podcast, we interviewed two people who work with young people who are neuro neurodivergent. And I mean, there's just some powerful stories of young people who are nonverbal, who actually just takes months of working with them for them to just make a sound. And that's so beautiful and powerful that they've been [00:24:00] able to achieve that with singing and music. And even that is beautiful and amazing.

Alexa: I consider myself to be quite a technically focused teacher. A lot of the work that I do is with singers in an institution where they're working towards assessments or auditions and things. But I'd be really interested to know if I went to work in a school or led a choir and I used the resources that you put together at the [00:25:00] foundation, what would I find in those resources?

And how would those sessions Look, what would I be focusing on?

Celi: so one of the things that we are actually really thinking a lot about. Is the difference between what you might want to call like a regular singing group and a singing for mental health and well being group and that there's actually a real kind of difference to that, that if you are working in kind of a regular singing group that was working for towards a performance, or that was like Baza saying these you know, really high, highly specialized choirs that, Music is the ultimate goal that, you might kind of do much more focus on that.

Whereas singing for mental health and well being is a, it's a different thing. It's really about that music is the agent of change, that you're creating a safe space, like Baz is saying, to allow people to to explore sound. That, you know, you won't be doing sort of note [00:26:00] bashing and that you're you might even if you do work for a performance, it has to be something that everybody agrees on doing that.

There's just a lot more sort of acceptance and flexibility in the group. And we've put together some ideas around. What that might look like. So what's the difference between singing for mental health and well being and what makes it different to other types of singing groups, but also thinking about what are the qualities that a music leader working in that environment need to be focused on.

And so we've created this sort of leadership schema. That's looking at what are the qualities that a leader needs to do know and be to be able to deliver these sessions effectively. And so what we're looking to do really is to create a library of resources to allow people to help themselves on their journey to become a leader for singing for mental health and well being to make [00:27:00] sure that they're going to be addressing the needs of the people in the room of the participants.

Baz: To answer your technical point, Alexa, I think there are a singing practitioner will always hopefully have that grasp of some of the things like posture good vocal health how to create a a good sound I suppose. In this particular context, I think there are certain things which might be additional to to the kind of environment that you were talking about.

And a lot of that our practitioners, the expert practitioners we speak to talk about flexibility and responsiveness, because A, you might have something where you need to avoid a sort of a negative experience or a thing happening. For example, something that's triggering because you've selected you know, maybe a piece of material that you didn't realize might be triggering. But then I think there's also that kind of quite creative responsiveness to the group or to the individual that you're working with. Um, [00:28:00] Chris Morris, who we've spoken to, who works in secure settings, will go in there and be really, really sensitive to the person that he's got in the room.

And he said, it might be. weeks before we actually start singing anything because that particular young person is so withdrawn within themselves, is so damaged. Um, whereas in another setting, you know, the young people might be really confident and really enthusiastic and, or there's a bit of tech I can get involved in, let's do some sequencing.

So that kind of, it's having those tools to be able to work with whoever's put in front of you and you can plan till you're blue in the face, but actually, you get there on the day and it might be completely not what you expected. I've certainly had experience of that where, we were expecting secondary age kids and we got primary.

Ah, what do we do? Okay, out the window with that repertoire, let's do some other stuff. So I think that, yeah, that that flexibility is really key. But those fundamentals of the, of vocal work [00:29:00] still stand. And all conductors and music leaders and singing leaders are different and they have different strengths and different bits of repertoire that they call on.

And I still think we advocate for that. So it's not, we're not talking about schemes of work. It's much more, as Celi said, a way of doing and knowing and being so that you can get the best out of the young people you're working with.

Alexa: And in those resources that you've created, what sort of tips are you giving people as to how to run the group and what the content looks like and that sort of thing, Celi?

Celi: what we've done so far is we've started to create some of the resources and we're going to be creating more over the coming year. We're going to create a whole library of resources and checklists to enable people to go through. And say, Oh, you know what? I really need to know more about that. And then we're going to give them places to go to find out about the kind of gaps that they might have. And actually, I think that's what this do no be framework is really going to be useful to to do for people is to [00:30:00] allow them to highlight. These are the areas that it'd be really good for me to think about and give them a moment to To think about the context, they're going to be working in.

And we've also had to think about what to commissioners need to do know and be because it's equally as important for somebody who might be commissioning a well being group. Maybe somebody works in a like a clinical commissioning group who says, You know what? I really want to have a singing for well being group in this local area was equally as important for them to have a list of things that they need to consider before they find a music leader before they get the group together all of that is so important for everyone to be really clear what they want to achieve with the group. But we've we have some resources already on the site.

Baz: Yeah, I can give you a kind of a snapshot of some of the things that that we've provided. Some of them are actually not specific to singing. Some of them are around what is attachment theory. What is a a child and adolescent mental health service and how does it relate?

[00:31:00] So just setting that wider context. But the kinds of things we've covered and we're building these resources all the time, but there's things like Emily Fowkes talking about the different kinds of singing for mental health and well being. Is it a choir or is it actually a walk in nature? There's stuff around the self safe spaces that we mentioned that might be not just about what the

space looks like, but actually what kind of an atmosphere do you want to create in the space? Do you want to talk about that with your own people? Us, can some of them lead the sessions? What might they want to know in advance so that they can feel comfortable about you going into the room? What can you find out about them? What do you not want to know about them? What do you do if there is a problem?

All of that kind of stuff. So all of those things to equip you to get that environment where everyone is safe. feeling safe and looked after. But then there's some other kind of what you might call cooler stuff, S. K. Shlomo, world famous beatboxer musician who themselves has really battled with suicide, [00:32:00] identity issues gender issues and they talk about, and they have some live examples of working with young people, looking at beatboxing, looking at mental health and well being looking at singing and songwriting for identity.

So all kinds of things that, that kind of give ideas about, Oh, actually, if I want to work a bit more in this context, or actually, if I know of young people that I work with, where I'm thinking there's some further depths here, things I don't know about, and I wonder how I can be best equipped as a singing leader to deal with those, hopefully in engaging with the kinds of stuff we're providing.

There'll be a few things that, That just ping and make people think, Oh, actually, yes, I could work that into my practice. That's really what we want to get to.

Alexa: I know that being inclusive is really important to you. And we were speaking with Rachel Lynes recently about the 40 choirs that she's been able to launch across the country and how the, [00:33:00] one of the main challenges has been bringing male voices in.

And so I wondered what your thoughts are on how you help. young males who might not think singing's cool, or we know that men don't necessarily talk about their emotions and feelings as much as potentially women do. So how do you help young boys, young male presenting students to come into well being groups to find those benefits for themselves as well.

Baz: I would say it's all about connection. Can you find it? Can they find a connection to what you want to provide? And can you connect with what they're interested in. There was, during the original Sing Up program, there was a choir called, I think it was Boys Noise. Do you remember them, Celi? Yeah.

They were Staffordshire based, I think, and It was electrifying when they were on stage. They were [00:34:00] so, it was so powerful. And I think it was a mix of they'd found, the leaders had found repertoire that they really enjoyed singing

that had probably been very carefully done to, to sort of work for cause I think there were changing voices within that group.

So it was a transitioning cambiatory style. But also I think they just got the culture right. They probably started with, enough of a foundation. Maybe there was a school where there was, they had done that thing of normalizing singing and the boys had no issue. And, And they'd built from that and suddenly it was a tribe, I guess.

I've heard that word used quite a lot. Even in, in your kind of top level youth choirs, there is a sort of a thing about, I feel safe amongst my own people. So often there's this kind of catch 22 in choirs where you don't, you feel like you don't have enough tenors and is and then, or baritones and you're, you just want more so that they feel more comfortable and then it will it will [00:35:00] build from that.

So yes, I think, can you find a way of connecting with them that makes it feel like it's something they want to engage with and won't feel so exposed? Can you make it special? Can, is the, is it worth considering a group that is just for them? If it's not, is there a way of it not feeling like it's I don't know, boys v girls?

Yeah what else? I think just recognizing that vocal change is more significant for for the male voice and that there may be times where it's just yeah. It's so exposing that you just need to be aware of that and what's the right kind of thing for that young person.

Just the other thing I'll say is that we did a podcast with a guy who was a head of music in a school, and he could not find a connection with these young people, particularly trying to teach the music curriculum. They had disengaged because it was something that they were being taught, and they, something they were being organized to do, and it didn't matter what he did, they would just resist him until [00:36:00] he, through a detention actually, had a conversation with a a boy and said just introduce me to what music you like.

And it was quite heavy duty rap called Drill. And built and he kind of allowed himself not to think I can't engage you because drill is too dark but actually use that as a platform to to build a connection which then spread throughout the entire school and led to a thing called rap club and he wasn't a rapper but that was For that group of young people, that's what worked for him.

And he allowed them to help lead him through that journey of discovery, even though he is now, you know, a fantastic coach for young people in that particular genre and others. So, I'm not suggesting that all singing teachers or

singing leaders need to engage with rap, but there's something in, there's a lesson in that about, can you find a way to make a connection?

Can you use what interests those young people to help you build something that they can engage [00:37:00] with that feels like it's not being done to them?

Alexa: From 98 percent of primary schools that you reached by 2012 and from the 60 percent of primary schools who continued their membership with you once funding had ended, what has been the feedback regarding how singing has contributed overall to the well being of their students?

And I know earlier, Ronselli, you said about you, the teachers had noticed a change in the playground and had really impacted their school life. So can you give us a little bit more of a case study on that?

Celi: There's always been singing schools lots to be said about the benefits of a singing school.

Um, and that singing schools. are happy schools, singing schools are achieving schools like that. Actually, there's so much about bringing singing and weaving it into the fabric of your school community that brings So many benefits. I know Michelle [00:38:00] actually, the chief exec of SingUp wrote a book a few years ago with with Faber all about singing schools and creating a singing school with tips and advice and talking about all the benefits that singing can bring to the school community.

Baz: I think there's a few things I suppose in more recent years that have affected singing in schools. There's the kind of the whole eBacc and the kind of political changes that have influenced the way that education happens. And I think has meant that we felt like music has not kept its place, its prominence within schools that it should have done.

And so whilst it's fantastic that SingUp and other partners have been able to continue doing what they're doing and get really great take up, there's no question that the arts have been devalued within education since the original SingUp program. But the other thing I think is around the, this thing I mentioned earlier about the crisis in mental health and well being.

We surveyed the subscribers [00:39:00] to the SingUp Foundation a while back and a lot of them referred to the fact that they do use singing to promote well being amongst their students and and that it could be a real lifeline and particularly if it Remains woven throughout the school and the school leadership is supportive of it Um, but also flagging the fact that they felt that

they wanted to do more around it singing and mental health and well being, but didn't feel like they got the tools.

I suppose it's like you were asking about the kind of the more technical aspects of it. How do you do that? How do you set up an institution which can really use singing to promote mental health and well being no matter kind of what, what that looks like. And that's, an ongoing study for us as well to talk to as many people as we can Celi and I use this phrase like the special sauce If you if you're one of those people that can just go into any room and ignite singing and engage everyone And get all of those benefits happening kind of in the blink of an [00:40:00] eye.

How do you do it? What is actually going on there to bring that about and I think That's one of our great ambitions for schools is that we can help them to develop whatever that special sauce looks like in their own settings. So yes, I would say that the fact that people are still so much in touch and are forever asking questions of us, like, oh, how do I do this?

How do I make this into a scheme of work that helps me achieve this bit of the curriculum or we've got someone singing in the choir who is neurodivergent and it feels like they're not fitting in. How do we make that work?

It's all of that sort of stuff where hopefully as we broaden our network, we can start to answer those questions and use case studies and stories to help us.

Alexa: I would not like to be the Prime Minister even if you paid me all the money in the world. And not to get too political about this, but I remember when Rishi Sunak was still our Prime Minister and he was talking about potentially making maths compulsory until the age of 18, which I was thankful.

I [00:41:00] was not an 18 year old anymore because that would have driven me around the bend. But how do we continue to show up for the arts, keep championing it and showing the amazing things that can do, I mean, if only all of the ministers listen to a podcast like this they would hear all of the amazing benefits, but how can we help foundations like yours, get the funding, get the backing and have this as something that is really ingrained in our education system.

Celi: It's really interesting actually, because last week when we were speaking to Daisy and Howard, Daisy Fancourt and Howard Goodall, we were speaking to them for our podcast. And, one of the things that actually kept on coming up was this thing that like, we need to promote like singing and the arts and music for their own sake.

Like actually it's really important for us to promote them for what they do, because one of the things that I think [00:42:00] we all get trapped into is we try to kind of address like, Oh, Rishi Sunak wants to do math. So let's try to find a way to like make singing and music about math, so that like we don't get lost, but actually we need to promote them for what they do, and like really just continue talking about the benefits, and actually, let's be honest, kids love music. They do. They love music. And they love being creative, kids are creative, amazing humans. I mean, one of the greatest things about kids is that when they're really young. They're not held back by all the silly things that we're held back from. Oh my God, are people going to hate this thing I'm doing? Because they're beautiful, like just free humans. And actually, I believe that we need to encourage as many creative pursuits For kids to be able to find themselves to [00:43:00] explore who they are and to create their own voices and you can do that so well through all the arts, through music, through singing, that is what the arts give you is they give you the ability to define yourself there's so many beautiful things that the arts can do. And I think that we need to be confident enough in the arts to continue promoting them for what they are.

Baz: I totally agree with that. Interestingly, our current prime minister has outwardly said he's a huge fan of music and of singing and very much recognizes the value and that fits in with this rhetoric of that creativity is a very important part of young people's development and that's great.

We do get asked quite a lot, you know, can you give me advocacy tools? And it can sometimes be a disadvantage that singing has so many potential benefits. Like you can just get exhausted trying to explain them , all the different hormones that are [00:44:00] released and the various things that can happen if the environment is right. I would say as a fundamental, certainly from my own experience , within an educational setting the ideal scenario is a combination of stuff that is like choirs, where there might be some quite I suppose a prescribed offer here is your opportunity to come and learn some new music, sing with other people and maybe work towards something, or maybe not, but also I think it's about the everyday stuff and the creativity.

We know from research that building in a bit of agency into the process of singing. So inviting young people's own leadership or their own ideas or their own compositions can be a massive boost to their own sense of well being and sense of self efficacy. So it's about kind of, Creating that palette, if you can do that, then in a way you don't need to throw statistics about, you can just demonstrate it by its own value, because then some of your greatest [00:45:00] advocates, which might be headteachers or whatever, are just seeing it happen and they will advocate for it so much more effectively than we who are, people would say, well, of course, you'd say that, wouldn't you?

You work in the business. I think we need to, it's the people that we persuade who go, absolutely, I would never have a school without that because I see its power. Any schools of experience singing playgrounds that Celi mentioned, know, they don't need any persuading of the power of singing.

Alexa: Tell us about your podcast because it's coming into its second season now. So who is coming on? What can we expect to see?

Celi: We've recorded the first half of our podcast and that's going to be released soon. We've had some amazing conversations and really what we wanted to do with the second season is to talk is we wanted to really start exploring the benefits that singing can bring to young people who have particular life challenges that can affect their mental health.

So we've, like I mentioned earlier, we've spoken to some [00:46:00] people that work with young people who have neurodivergence, so autism or ADHD. We've spoken to a young disabled musician. We've also spoken to people who work with care experienced young people. So we've really tried to focus in on all these different life challenges that young people can have that can affect their mental health and what special things that singing can bring to those situations.

Alexa: Great. And it launches soon?

Celi: Yes, we're hoping to start publishing the episodes in October.

Alexa: Excellent.

Baz: It's called Inspiring Voices because obviously the voices is a link to the fact that we're talking about singing and vocal work. But it's also, I think it's insights into people who are working in areas that maybe are not always obvious in the day to day, whether that be a hospital setting or a care experience setting.

Or people who are representing those who maybe historically would have [00:47:00] been left out from these kinds of activities, whereas actually singing has amazing powers to include them. And I think series one was much more about look at this amazing individual and what they do and be inspired by them and take some of their ideas.

The second series, we've been looking to get a deeper understanding, I suppose, of, of how all of this works , for example, singing in hospital bed, incredible things that can do and what a terrible loss it is if certain young people who might benefit most are unable to access it.

So the goal is to, through inspiration and through insight, to see more of it happening.

Alexa: And what's next for SingUp? Have you got anything that you can tell us about how it's growing? What's in the pipeline? And can you tell us we can find out more about it and get involved?

Celi: For SingUp, what's next is that SingUp has just relaunched their SingUp Play Recorder.

They've also got SingUp [00:48:00] Music is still going on, so there's loads of resources that are being always added to the SingUp website. For the Foundation we're going to continue growing our resources, like we mentioned previously about the DoKnowoBe resources, and how we're really looking at creating a whole suite of things that can support singing leaders to enable them to work on how they lead singing for mental health and well being.

Baz: So just to jump in there. I suppose we're sensing a growing importance in practitioner well being.

So as part of that piece of work, if you're working in a challenging situation, then.

In pretty much any other aspect of certainly health care, you would have supervision, you would have an opportunity to go and talk to someone about what you've experienced and make sure you're not taking any of that away and that it's not affecting your well being. We think that's not happening enough at all and that it's not being built properly into [00:49:00] budgets for project work from a lot of organizations. And so that I think, yeah we're really interested in looking at practitioner wellbeing. Sorry, Celi, carry on.

Celi: Oh, it's all right. And actually practitioner wellbeing is a really big part of the project we've put together.

We put together a pilot project with Surrey Arts. And it's working on a project around singing with young refugees and unaccompanied minors. And it's using the research which we commissioned from the University of Limerick last year, and really trying to take that forward and using some of the recommendations from that report to create a pilot project which can be rolled out through other areas and that is really focused on the mental health and well being benefits of singing for young refugees and unaccompanied minors, but also around what Baz is saying around practitioner well being and thinking about, you know, the people who work in these settings with young people who've had really

challenging experiences and how we can [00:50:00] support the music leaders to deliver the best sessions for these young people and how they can also take care of themselves because we know that is such a critical part of the work. So we're actually currently fundraising to get together the money to be able to deliver this amazing three year project with Surrey Arts, which we're then hoping will also be rolled out to different areas across the UK.

Alexa: Amazing. Amazing. And where can we find out more about that fundraiser and more about the foundation and get involved?

Celi: All of that is on our website www. singupfoundation. org. And we regularly publish on different social media channels about our work and our podcast Inspiring Voices will be coming out in October. And that you can follow that on Apple or Spotify or any other podcast platform and also on YouTube.

Baz: And just to add with the website most of the stuff we provide is [00:51:00] free of charge. And , you can also subscribe which means that you can access all sorts of documents and get the newsletter and stuff like that.

And that's all free of charge as well. We might occasionally charge for training which we're looking to develop over the coming year. But most of the stuff is, there because we want to get it out there. And, we want to see these benefits reaching more young people.

Celi: And also, obviously, Surrey Arts Project or any of the other work we do, they can get in touch with their website or donate.

Alexa: Amazing. Well, Baz and Celi, thank you so much for telling us about Sing Up and Sing Up Foundation and for continuing to fly the flag for the arts and stand up for it for all of us. . And thank you so much for your company. It's been great to chat.

Celi: Thank you.

Baz: Thank you.