Cared for young people express themselves through music

Dr Kirsty Hughes and Dr Louise Mansell, Chartered Clinical Psychologists

Fifteen cared for young people have be invited to attend a programme of activities to help them explore thoughts and feelings such as, loss, hope, optimism, anger and stress using music, song writing and radio production.

Eight of these sessions will involve working with musician facilitators to create new songs.

The other eight sessions will be radio production sessions, which involve learning new skills around presenting and producing their own radio show. They will cover interview techniques, research, editing radio/audio production and together they will apply these skills during two final broadcasts on NMFM 106.6.

This is a new collaboration between Nurture Psychology Service and North Manchester FM Community Radio station, funded by the National Lottery.

Dr Louise Mansell, Chartered Clinical Psychologist said: “When we talked to the young people about their ideas they made a range of suggestions with the favourite by far being a ‘looked after children’s choir’, to which the young people spontaneously starting to sing ‘superman got nothing on me’.

“This song was referring to the support our service had provided for them, and they changed some of the words, it was very funny, and we joined them in singing, it was a really special moment."

“So, when we saw this project and this funding opportunity, it was perfect.

“The young people told us how they ‘never forgot that moment singing superman’ and we kept in mind their request for the choir.

“We hope that once the 16 weeks is over, we can support the group to continue and publish the findings to be able to source more funding for other groups of looked after children in the north west, as there has been a lot of interest in this.

Nurture Psychology Service was founded and set up almost two years ago by Dr Kirsty Hughes and Dr Louise Mansell, Chartered Clinical Psychologists.

The project will run from January to May.