Early intervention music therapy : reporting on a 3-year project to address needs with at-risk families

Sing & Grow is an early intervention music therapy project presented to families with additional needs, or those at risk of experiencing disadvantage due to social and/or economic circumstances that may impact on their parenting experiences. The aim of the project is to provide short term music therapy programs to families in communities where access to such services may be limited. The program is strengths-based and focuses on building upon a parent’s capacity to relate to and respond to their child’s emotional and developmental needs.

Sing & Grow : the co-existence of evaluation research and clinical practice in an early intervention music therapy project

Sing & Grow is a short term early intervention music therapy program for at risk families. Sing & Grow uses music to strengthen parent-child relationships by increasing positive parent-child interactions, assisting parents to bond with their children, and extending the repertoire of parents’ skills in relating to their child through interactive . Both the Australian and New Zealand governments are looking for evidence based research to highlight the effectiveness of funded programs in early childhood. As a government funded program, independent evaluation is a requirement of the delivery of the service. This paper explains the process involved in setting up and managing this large scale evaluation from engaging the evaluators and designing the project, to the data gathering stage. It describes the various challenges encountered and concludes that a highly collaborative and communicative partnership bet en researchers and clinicians is essential to ensure data can be gathered with minimal disturbance to clinical music therapy practice.

Action inquiry into the use of standardized evaluation tools for music therapy : a real life journey within a parent-child community program

Sing & Grow is an early intervention music therapy project that provides community group music therapy programs to families with young children who encounter risk factors that may impact on parenting and optimal child develop variety of evaluation tools were devised and used over the first 3 years of the project. Upon the subsequent funding and expansion of the project at the end of this period, it was necessary to find, test and devise more rigorous, valid and reliable measures to withstand the scrutiny of researchers, and to combat the concerns and criticisms associated with the previous methods of data collection. An action inquiry project was therefore undertaken with two groups of project participants to trial the use of the Parenting Stress Index and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales, both recommended by leading psychologists. Key findings that will be discussed include the friction between the deficit-focussed nature of many psychometric tools and the strengths-based approach taken in service delivery, the level of difficulty in terms of literacy and comprehension for vulnerable respondents, and the lack of one tool with the ability to comprehensively measure all aspects of a broad scoping program. Keywords: music therapy, evaluation, PSI, DASS, action inquiry.

Reflections on music therapy with Indigenous families : cultural learning put into practice

This paper will describe the process of learning and development that occurred when the Sing & Grow prevention and early intervention project began to provide services to Indigenous families, a relatively new area or music therapy, particularly in Brisbane. The first attempt at establishing a weekly group music therapy program for Indigenous families was not as successful as anticipated; however through analysis of the contributing factors, guidelines were developed and implemented in the following program, which resulted in a positive learning experience for the families and therapists involved.

Conceptions of school-based youth health nursing

The aim of this research is to explore the meaning of the experience of school-based youth health nursing in Queensland, Australia. The research follows a qualitative approach and is based on indepth interviews. The dominant experience is negative because participants feel they have to battle to gain respect and survive in the school environment. The small, positive experience of school-based youth health nursing is related to student consultations. Student consultations are a ‘golden egg’ because participants gain a sense of reward from making a difference to student wellbeing. This paper proposes operational recommendations including those related to health promotion and professional development and strategic recommendations regarding this model of school nursing. The authors conclude, first, that this ‘golden egg’ should be promoted to ensure all school nurses reap the rewards, second, that this model of school nursing is not the most effective model.

The Global Youth Media Council : young people speaking and learning about media reform

The 5th World Summit on Media for Children and Youth held in Karlstad, Sweden in June 2010 provided a unique media literacy experience for approximately thirty young people from diverse backgrounds through participation in the Global Youth Media Council. This article focuses on the Summit’s aim to give young people a ‘voice’ through intercultural dialogue about media reform. The accounts of four young Australians are discussed in order to consider how successful the Summit was in achieving this goal. The article concludes by making recommendations for future international media literacy conferences involving young people. It also advocates for the expansion of the Global Youth Media Council concept as a grass roots movement to involve more young people in discussions about media reform.

“Prosuming” across cultures : youth creating digital media across borders

The Scratch Online Community is a space that enables young people to share their creative digital projects internationally with a level of ease that was impossible only a few years ago. Like all creative communities, Scratch is not just a space for sharing products, work, techniques and tips and tricks, but also a space for social interaction. Media literacy educators have unprecedented challenges and opportunities in digital environments like Scratch to harness the vast amount of knowledge in the community to enhance students’ learning. They also have challenges and opportunities in terms of implementing a form of digital media literacy education that is responsive to social and cultural representation. One role of digital media literacy is to help young people to challenge unfair and derogatory portrayals of people and to break down processes of social and cultural ‘othering’ so that all community members feel included and safe to express themselves. This article considers how online community spaces might draw on social interaction to enhance cross-cultural understandings and learning through dialogue and creative practice. The article uses statistics to indicate the amount of international interaction in the Scratch community. It then uses qualitative analysis of forum discussions and creative digital work to analyse the types of cross cultural interaction that occurs.

Choreographic approaches to music composition for a new musical interface : the eMic

Gesture in performance is widely acknowledged in the literature as an important element in making a performance expressive and meaningful. The body has been shown to play an important role in the production and perception of vocal performance in particular. This paper is interested in the role of gesture in creative works that seek to extend vocal performance via technology. A creative work for vocal performer, laptop computer and a Human Computer Interface called the eMic (Extended Microphone Stand Interface controller) is presented as a case study, to explore the relationships between movement, voice production, and musical expression. The eMic is an interface for live vocal performance that allows the singers’ gestures and interactions with a sensor based microphone stand to be captured and mapped to musical parameters. The creative work discussed in this paper presents a new compositional approach for the eMic by working with movement as a starting point for the composition and thus using choreographed gesture as the basis for musical structures. By foregrounding the body and movement in the creative process, the aim is to create a more visually engaging performance where the performer is able to more effectively use the body to express their musical objectives.

Caregiving attachment in mothers with schizophrenia: Child and Youth Mental Health Service, Mater Misericordiae Health Services, South Brisbane, Australia

The assessment of parenting capacity and appropriate provision of services to assist parents with mental illness requires improved understanding of how a mental illness may affect the parent-child relationship. Mothers with mental illness may be defensive when providing self-report accounts of their parenting. Within the framework of attachment theory, this study developed a methodology for investigating the quality and characteristics of caregiving through exploration of the mothers' perceptions and strategies in managing her child at bedtime. Utilising questions derived from caregiving attachment research, five mothers with schizophrenia participated in a semi-structured interview concerning bedtime separation. In addition the mothers completed a modified standardised measure of attachment style, the Parent Bonding Instrument, to provide information regarding how they perceived their parenting style. The mothers demonstrated very poor understanding of their child's bedtime anxiety. They described difficulty being effective with bedtime strategies and attributed it to medication-induced fatigue. The interview data contrasted significantly with the Parent Bonding Instrument data in which the mothers did not identify concerns in themselves as caregivers. This study demonstrated the feasibility of a novel approach to gathering information regarding parenting from mothers with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The HarmonyGrid : music, space and performance in grid music systems

This research explores music in space, as experienced through performing and music-making with interactive systems. It explores how musical parameters may be presented spatially and displayed visually with a view to their exploration by a musician during performance. Spatial arrangements of musical components, especially pitches and harmonies, have been widely studied in the literature, but the current capabilities of interactive systems allow the improvisational exploration of these musical spaces as part of a performance practice. This research focuses on quantised spatial organisation of musical parameters that can be categorised as grid music systems (GMSs), and interactive music systems based on them. The research explores and surveys existing and historical uses of GMSs, and develops and demonstrates the use of a novel grid music system designed for whole body interaction. Grid music systems provide plotting of spatialised input to construct patterned music on a two-dimensional grid layout. GMSs are navigated to construct a sequence of parametric steps, for example a series of pitches, rhythmic values, a chord sequence, or terraced dynamic steps. While they are conceptually simple when only controlling one musical dimension, grid systems may be layered to enable complex and satisfying musical results. These systems have proved a viable, effective, accessible and engaging means of music-making for the general user as well as the musician. GMSs have been widely used in electronic and digital music technologies, where they have generally been applied to small portable devices and software systems such as step sequencers and drum machines. This research shows that by scaling up a grid music system, music-making and musical improvisation are enhanced, gaining several advantages: (1) Full body location becomes the spatial input to the grid. The system becomes a partially immersive one in four related ways: spatially, graphically, sonically and musically. (2) Detection of body location by tracking enables hands-free operation, thereby allowing the playing of a musical instrument in addition to “playing” the grid system. (3) Visual information regarding musical parameters may be enhanced so that the performer may fully engage with existing spatial knowledge of musical materials. The result is that existing spatial knowledge is overlaid on, and combined with, music-space. Music-space is a new concept produced by the research, and is similar to notions of other musical spaces including soundscape, acoustic space, Smalley's “circumspace” and “immersive space” (2007, 48-52), and Lotis's “ambiophony” (2003), but is rather more textural and “alive”—and therefore very conducive to interaction. Music-space is that space occupied by music, set within normal space, which may be perceived by a person located within, or moving around in that space. Music-space has a perceivable “texture” made of tensions and relaxations, and contains spatial patterns of these formed by musical elements such as notes, harmonies, and sounds, changing over time. The music may be performed by live musicians, created electronically, or be prerecorded. Large-scale GMSs have the capability not only to interactively display musical information as music representative space, but to allow music-space to co-exist with it. Moving around the grid, the performer may interact in real time with musical materials in music-space, as they form over squares or move in paths. Additionally he/she may sense the textural matrix of the music-space while being immersed in surround sound covering the grid. The HarmonyGrid is a new computer-based interactive performance system developed during this research that provides a generative music-making system intended to accompany, or play along with, an improvising musician. This large-scale GMS employs full-body motion tracking over a projected grid. Playing with the system creates an enhanced performance employing live interactive music, along with graphical and spatial activity. Although one other experimental system provides certain aspects of immersive music-making, currently only the HarmonyGrid provides an environment to explore and experience music-space in a GMS.

The effectiveness of a short-term group music therapy intervention for young parents and their children

The quality of early life experiences are known to influence a child’s capacities for emotional, social, cognitive and physical competence throughout their life (Peterson, 1996; Zubrick et al., 2008). These early life experiences are directly affected by parenting and family environments. A lack of positive parenting has significant implications both for children, and the broader communities in which they live (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Dryfoos, 1990; Sanders, 1995). Young parents are known to be at risk of experiencing adverse circumstances that affect their ability to provide positive parenting to their children (Milan et al., 2004; Trad, 1995). There is a need to provide parenting support programs to young parents that offer opportunities for them to come together, support each other and learn ways to provide for their children’s developmental needs in a friendly, engaging and non-judgemental environment. This research project examines the effectiveness of a 10 week group music therapy program Sing & Grow as an early parenting intervention for 535 young parents. Sing & Grow is a national early parenting intervention program funded by the Australian Government and delivered by Playgroup Queensland. It is designed and delivered by Registered Music Therapists for families at risk of marginalisation with children aged from birth to three years. The aim of the program is to improve parenting skills and parent-child interactions, and increase social support networks through participation in a group that is strengths-based and structured in a way that lends itself to modelling, peer learning and facilitated learning. During the 10 weeks parents have opportunities to learn practical, hands-on ways to interact and play with their children that are conducive to positive parent-child relationships and ongoing child development. A range of interactive, nurturing, stimulating and developmental music activities provide the framework for parents to interact and play with their children. This research uses data collected through the Sing & Grow National Evaluation Study to examine outcomes for all participants aged 25 years and younger, who attended programs during the Sing & Grow pilot study and main study from mid-2005 to the end of 2007. The research examines the change from pre to post in self-reported parent behaviours, parent mental health and parent social support, and therapist observed parent-child interactions. A range of statistical analyses are used to address each Research Objective for the young parent population, and for subgroups within this population. Research Objective 1 explored the patterns of attendance in the Sing & Grow program for young parents, and for subgroups within this population. Results showed that levels of attendance were lower than expected and influenced by Indigenous status and source of family income. Patterns of attendance showed a decline over time and incomplete data rates were high which may indicate high dropout rates. Research Objective 2 explored perceived satisfaction, benefits and social support links made. Satisfaction levels with the program and staff were very high. Indigenous status was associated with lower levels of reported satisfaction with both the program and staff. Perceived benefits from participation in the program were very high. Employment status was associated with perceived benefits: parents who were not employed were more likely than employed parents to report that their understanding of child development had increased as a result of participation in the program. Social support connections were reported for participants with other professionals, services and parents. In particular, families were more likely to link up with playgroup staff and services. Those parents who attended six or more sessions were significantly more likely to attend a playgroup than those who attended five sessions or less. Social support connections were related to source of family income, level of education, Indigenous status and language background. Research Objective 3 investigated pre to post change on self-report parenting skills and parent mental health. Results indicated that participation in the Sing & Grow program was associated with improvements in parent mental health. No improvements were found for self-reported parenting skills. Research Objective 4 investigated pre to post change in therapist observation measures of parent-child interactions. Results indicated that participation in the Sing & Grow program was associated with large and significant improvements in parent sensitivity to, engagement with and acceptance of the child. There were significant interactions across time (pre to post) for the parent characteristics of Indigenous status, family income and level of education. Research Objective 5 explored the relationship between the number of sessions attended and extent of change on self-report outcomes and therapist observed outcomes, respectively. For each, an overall change score was devised to ascertain those parents who had made any positive changes over time. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between high attendance and positive change in either the self-report or therapist observed behavioural measures. A risk index was also constructed to test for a relationship between the risk status of the parent. Parents with the highest risk status were significantly more likely to attend six or more sessions than other parents, but risk status was not associated with any differences in parent reported outcomes or therapist observations. The results of this research study indicate that Sing & Grow is effective in improving outcomes for young parents’ mental health, parent-child interactions and social support connections. High attendance by families in the highest category for risk factors may indicate that the program is effective at engaging and retaining parents who are most at-risk and therefore traditionally hard to reach. Very high levels of satisfaction and perceived benefits support this. Further research is required to help confirm the promising evidence from the current study that a short term group music therapy program can support young parents and improve their parenting outcomes. In particular, this needs to address the more disappointing outcomes of the current research study to improve attendance and engagement of all young parents in the program and especially the needs of young Indigenous parents.

Educational change and youth voice: Informing school action on cyberbullying

Change is a regular part of school life. Educational innovations are constantly being implements in order to benefit students, improve outcomes and meet the obligations and accountability demands of governments. Rapid social and technological change has occurred within and around schools during the past 15 or more years, impacting upon curricula and pedagogies. Simultaneously, there has been a trend towards incorporating youth voice, where young people share in the decisions that will impact on their school experiences (Mitra, 2008a, 2004). Most recently, with the advent of the first National Australian Curriculum (McGaw, 2010), there is an imposed curriculum change, which reflects the growing global trend towards centralised control over what students learn in school (Zhao, 2011) and highlights that schools have to respond to change from all levels. Spears (in press) also notes that parents are raising children in an increasingly wireless world which is far removed from the one in which they were raised. Educators are teaching in schools that are vastly different technologically from those they knew as children and adolescents, or even those in which they were teaching a decade ago. Children born in 1995, the year when the Internet was first commercialised, are 16 years old in 2011 and, whilst parents may have embraced technological advances in their own adult working or social lives, they are yet to fathom fully what it means for their children and their relationships: to be educated and to socialise in the midst of mobile social media. Young people have greater access to more information than at any time past and move seamlessly between online and offline environments, often referring to them as ‘the same life’ (Spears, Kofoed, Bartolo, Palermiti and Castabile, in press). Along with these changes has come the transformation of traditional forms of bullying to cyberbullying, amid the public perception that bullying generally is becoming worse in schools.

Evolutionary morphing for music composition

From one view of composition—let us call it the inspired or “Mozartian” view—musical compositions arrive fully formed in the mind of the composer and simply require transcription. In reality, however, it seems that very few people are so inspired, and composition is often more akin to a gradual clarification and refinement of partially formed ideas on the musical landscape. Particular landmarks in the compositional landscape tend to become clear before others, such that the incomplete piece is a patchwork of disconnected musical islands. An interactive evolutionary morphing system may provide some assistance for composers, to help build bridges between musical islands by generating hybrid musical transitions.

Conversation, community and kids: blogging for youth at Gold Coast City Council libraries

In late 2007, Gold Coast City Council libraries embarked on an online library project, designed to ramp up libraries’ online services to customers. As part of this project, the Young People’s team identified a need to connect with youth aged 12 to 16 in the online environment, in order to create a direct channel of communication with this market segment and encourage them to engage with the library. Blogging was identified as an appropriate means of communicating with both current and potential library customers from this age group. The Young People’s team consequently prepared a concept plan for a youth blog for launch in Children’s Book Week 2008 and are working towards development of management and administrative models and documentation and implementation of the blog itself. While many libraries have been quick to take up Web 2.0-style services, there has been little formal publication about the successes (or failures) of this type of project. Likewise, few libraries have published about the planning, management, and administration of such services. The youth blog currently in development at Gold Coast City Council libraries will be supported by a robust planning phase and will be rigorously evaluated as part of the project. This paper will report on the project (its aims, objectives and outputs), the planning process, and the evaluation activities and outcomes.