Making a Joyful Noise: The Potential Role of Music Making in the Well-Being of Young Families

Description

A research report by WolfBrown on behalf of the Van Leer Foundation of the Netherlands exploring the potential of music in supporting child development, health and wellbeing. The Life-Saving Lullabies project is featured as a case study on page 22. It is the only example of an intervention for the perinatal period.

Subject

Music, families and wellbeing: In their first five years, children’s physical, neurological, social-emotional, cognitive, and expressive growth unfolds more rapidly than at any other time in their lifespans. However, there are as many as 200 million children worldwide who fail to thrive in these years, with lifelong consequences for their lives, their families, and for the societies in which they, in turn, become adults and parents (Grantham-McGregor et al., 2007; UNICEF, 2019). In this remarkable, but vulnerable, process, music can be an immediate, low-cost, high-impact resource available to families in homes, tents, temporary shelters, and even as they migrate