Jessie’s Fund has been working with Calderdale Portage, a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with special educational needs and their families in West Yorkshire. Our musician Jess Baker tells us more about the project, which she says is the highlight of her week.

This project started with a pilot in May 2022. The first step was for Jessie’s Fund to run a training session with the Portage team. We had a morning of singing and music-making together so they could get a feel for what would be involved in a typical session and to demystify the hows and whys of delivering music for early years. The team that morning consisted of 18 brilliant staff members, all sat having a laugh, engaging with music and asking me lots of questions such as ‘How can we make music work best for the young people with visual impairments?’ and asking me what I would do in different situations. I knew I was onto a winner with this team straight away.

We followed up this training with a six-week pilot that included three Portage staff members and eight families. We met every Tuesday morning, where we ran a music session that involved familiar songs, action songs, a parachute and lots of brightly coloured scarves. We would then have a brew and get the sensory toys out so the parents could chat and the children could play.

It quickly became apparent that the positive impacts of these sessions were three-fold. The parents reported back that this group had become integral to their week and that ‘It’s not like other groups, I don’t feel judged here, we can relax and just be.’ The Portage staff reported back that Tuesday mornings had become an important part of their week because it felt so good to be connecting to the parents and young people in this different way and that they often felt better in themselves after having some fun in the session. It felt like that to me too! And of course, the children were getting a musical experience, they were learning new skills, they were playing and spending time with their family.

Since then Jessie’s Fund have continued to run more blocks of sessions, welcoming in new families and being joined by different portage staff members.

One of the factors of this group being such a success is that the Portage team has taken part in three training mornings. They took part in the training with their whole hearts and they came to understand what is needed in the room, in the moment, to support the families to engage fully with music making. One of the intended outcomes of this project was to empower staff to be able to use music in their 1:1 work with young people on their caseload and also to be able to run their own groups. This term, we are concentrating on sharing the load, taking it in turns to lead parts of the session with me there to support and guide. Two staff members have already established another group on a Monday to further develop their skills.

There have been many highlights for me, such as when one child stepped underneath the parachute for the first time after many weeks of staying at the edges of the room. The group responded by being gentle and quieter with the parachute and allowing that one child the time to build confidence and have that experience. Another highlight for me was when one of the dads came in for our Christmas session dressed as Santa, he spent time with each child in their own way and they all had photos and gifts. Both of these examples speak of the community that is created in groups like these. Group members looking out for each other, supporting one another and going that extra mile.

This is just some of the feedback we have received from parents:

‘Everyone is so lovely and welcoming, the children are all involved in their own way.’

‘My daughter adores the shaker song, we sing it at home regularly. It’s nice to see her independence grow. Best sessions ever!’

‘He really enjoys playing with instruments and his vocab has come on alot. I really enjoy being around other mums.’