In this section

Skills, knowledge and attributes

How do we match practitioners to contexts?

School level conditions

Partnerships and collaboration

Training and professional development

Funding and sustainability

The evaluation challenge

Even the most skilled practitioner cannot succeed in isolation. Singing for mental health and wellbeing depends on an ecosystem of support – from the school leaders who prioritise it, to the partnerships that sustain it, to the funding models that make it possible. Yet conversations with practitioners consistently reveal a gap: many believe deeply in the benefits of this work, but feel underprepared to deliver it effectively, particularly with vulnerable populations. This section explores what needs to be in place – beyond individual skill – to close that gap and enable effective, sustainable practice.

Skills, knowledge and attributes

As needs become more complex, so do the demands on practitioners. Not everyone is equipped to work with all populations; this is not a criticism, it’s a recognition of the skills, knowledge and behaviours which make up effective practice.

There is a rich, if under-documented, body of knowledge about what effective practice looks like in this field. Skilled practitioners carry this knowledge, often without naming it, drawing on received traditions and years of accumulated craft. The challenge is not that this pedagogy is unknown, but that it has not been systematically surfaced, articulated and made accessible, particularly for a new generation of practitioners who may not have had the opportunity to learn from those who came before them.

This is why we’ve been developing what we call DO-KNOW-BE, our attempt to articulate what skilled practitioners already know and do, and to make it available to others. It describes what practitioners can do (musical skill), what they need to know (mental health awareness), and who they need to be (relational capacity). We believe that working with vulnerable populations requires all three elements to be in balance.

We see DO-KNOW-BE not as a fixed toolkit but as a living framework, something we want to keep developing with practitioners, not hand down to them. It will continue to evolve through dialogue, practice and shared learning, and we expect it to look different in different contexts. While we’ve framed this around practitioners, the same clarity of roles matters at every level: commissioners, managers, and organisations all play a part in creating the conditions for success.

School level conditions

Senior leadership buy-in is critical. Singing for wellbeing cannot thrive if it’s an add-on or an afterthought – it needs to be embedded in school culture. Senior leaders would need to recognise mental health and wellbeing support as a priority, not a distraction from ‘core’ business. Without this, practitioners report being squeezed out by curriculum pressures.

Recent policy developments, including the 2025 UK Government Curriculum & Assessment Review, may create more space for this work – although change at school level will depend on local leadership and resources.

There’s an important distinction between singing woven into the school day (assemblies, transitions, classroom practice) and singing designed to address specific mental health challenges. The first, ‘just singing’, supports general wellbeing and should be part of every young person’s experience (this is often easier to embed in primary than secondary settings, but is valuable in both). But for young people facing deeper difficulties, something more intentional may be needed: smaller groups, trained practitioners, sustained relationships, careful attention to emotional safety, and capacity within the school day.

We don’t yet fully understand how these two levels relate to each other in practice – does everyday singing create a foundation that makes targeted work more effective? Can targeted interventions be embedded within whole-school cultures, or do they need to sit alongside them? These are live questions, and ones we’re keen to explore further: how singing for mental health might work in whole-school and multi-school/community contexts, what the infrastructure might look like, and how universal and targeted provision could reinforce each other. What’s clear is that they’re not the same thing and conflating them risks under-serving young people who need more than a daily feel-good song.

Adequate spaces matter – practitioners talk about needing creative rooms and music rooms fit for purpose. But time is one of the scarcest resources: curriculum demands, large class sizes, and competing priorities threaten to squeeze out everything that isn’t adequately evidenced. Sustained duration is essential for genuine connection to develop – one-off workshops have limited impact, particularly with vulnerable populations. And flexibility in resources helps to meet diverse needs. This isn’t easy to achieve.

The 2025 UK Government Curriculum & Assessment Review’s call for ‘time and space beyond curriculum specifications’ speaks directly to these challenges – but schools will need support to create environments where singing for mental health can take root.

Partnerships and collaboration

Effective, deep partnerships are the lifeblood of this work, allowing for joint planning, shared learning, and genuine responsiveness to local need. Multi-agency working across education, health and cultural sectors strengthens provision, and at practice level, collaborations with mental health professionals, such as psychologists, music therapists and social prescribers, can be highly beneficial. They can advise on boundaries, help navigate complex cases, and offer referral pathways where necessary. This isn’t about practitioners becoming therapists, it’s about knowing who else is in the system and how to collaborate with them.

Networks and peer support are key for this work to flourish, but scarce resources create a risk that frontline practitioners work too much in isolation. Communities of practice, peer networks, even informal social media groups offer low-cost support and reduce isolation. Cluster training is cost-effective and builds local networks of practitioners at various levels who can support each other, and apprenticeship and mentoring models can be extremely effective for skill and knowledge transfer. The infrastructure needs budget, but it also needs intentionality and coordination.

Training and professional development

In January 2026, when we asked practitioners what would help them be more intentional about mental health in their vocal work, the top responses were: practical resources and activity ideas (79%), training in mental health approaches (56%), understanding the

difference between wellbeing and mental ill-health (53%), and collaboration with mental health professionals (46%). (n=162)

Among those not yet doing this work, 72% cited lack of necessary skills or training as a barrier, 44% said they don’t know where to start, and 28% expressed concern about doing harm or getting it wrong.

We know from our conversations that there is also consensus among practitioners on the need for mental health awareness training, including trauma-informed approaches, understanding anxiety, grief and lack of self-esteem, recognising behaviours that signal distress, knowing when and how to refer. But the gap isn’t just knowledge – it’s confidence, with many practitioners worrying about getting it wrong or making things worse.

Experiential methods work better than theory alone – role-playing scenarios, shadowing experienced practitioners, working through case studies, can all be beneficial. Training should address all three DO-KNOW-BE dimensions, not just musical skill. And practitioners can benefit from experiencing creative vocal work themselves first – understanding from the inside what it feels like to be vulnerable in a singing space.

Single training days have limited impact without follow-up support. Sustained mentoring relationships, where less experienced practitioners learn alongside more experienced ones over time, show greater impact than isolated workshops. And blended approaches (online modules plus face-to-face practice) can extend reach while maintaining depth.

Funding and sustainability

Funding limitations and competing priorities are consistently identified as barriers to this work. Our January 2026 survey highlighted that lack of funding/resources was the most

commonly cited barrier among those actively doing this work, followed by lack of time in the schedule, and difficulty accessing specialist support or supervision. Although from a small sample, this reflects our wider observations in the sector.

Short-term project funding is fundamentally incompatible with the sustained, relationship-based work that vulnerable populations need. The pattern is familiar: a funded project shows promise, funding ends, relationships break, progress is lost. This model doesn’t usually work for vulnerable young people. Sustainability therefore requires thinking beyond initial intervention costs.

Importantly, practitioner support (supervision, reflection, CPD) must be built into funding applications from the start, not treated as an overhead to be minimised. Some organisations don’t build this adequately into their infrastructure, perhaps fearing funding rejection – but funders increasingly understand the need, and organisations have a responsibility to advocate for realistic budgets, not perpetuate unsustainable models by underbidding. It’s easy to say when funds are scarce, but it’s a false economy not to invest in workforce wellbeing.

Where we can improve the case for singing to support mental health is in a deeper understanding and demonstration of impact. Cost-effectiveness arguments for singing interventions remain underdeveloped. Strategic alignment with government priorities (e.g. curriculum reform, children’s wellbeing, early intervention) may provide more sustainable foundations than project-by-project funding, and the UK Government’s Curriculum & Assessment Review and Children’s Wellbeing Bill create potential hooks – but we need to make the case explicitly and with robust evidence.

The evaluation challenge

There is a tension between evidence and practice. Funders and policymakers (understandably) want evidence of impact, but rigorous evaluation is resource-intensive, and clinical measurement tools don’t always fit creative practice. Too often, evaluation becomes a tick-box exercise to satisfy funders or report numbers. But it can be so much more than that: a powerful advocacy tool for the sector as a whole, and a way for practitioners and organisations to learn from their work and keep developing, improving and sharing.

Working with vulnerable young people raises specific ethical challenges around evaluation. Practitioners have to navigate the challenge of providing space for self-expression while ensuring they’re not mining young people’s stories for organisational or funder benefit. Asking young people to articulate trauma or distress for evaluation purposes can itself be harmful, while standard pre/post surveys may miss what matters most, or capture it in ways that feel extractive.

So when considering what might work for evaluation we should consider that:

• Creative, embedded evaluation methods may be more appropriate than traditional clinical measures

• Observation, practitioner reflection and participant voice gathered naturally rather than extracted through formal instruments, will likely yield better insights

• Broader youth consultation that’s not so overtly focused on evaluation may deliver more richness

The sector needs evaluation frameworks which are rigorous enough to satisfy funders and fully demonstrate value or impact, but sensitive enough to protect participants, however evaluation is an area where our evidence identifies the problem more clearly than it offers solutions. More focus and collaboration in this area could yield vital advocacy tools, as well as deepening our understanding of what works.

Understanding what the workforce needs leads to a bigger question: how does it all connect? The next section draws together the threads into an emerging framework.