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The Creative Change Project is a national ARC funded research project at Griffith University’s Creative Arts Research Institute. The Creative Change Project is exploring how community music might be working in ways that address social inequity across Australia.

Initial findings demonstrate that community music can significantly contribute to health promotion by fostering personal growth, community cohesion, and policy advocacy. Key learnings for health promotion include the importance of inclusive and collaborative approaches to addressing inequity that draw on a community’s creative and cultural assets.

Background and context

Health and social inequity is a growing challenge for Queenslanders, as it is globally, and we need innovative and creative approaches in health promotion to support our efforts towards health equity.

There are powerful social, emotional, physiological, cognitive, cultural, and economic benefits that can come from participating in music, including social capital, social inclusion, social cohesion, well-being, and self-determination.^{1, 5}

Participating in community music programs can foster creative and inclusive spaces for expression and connection in communities where inequalities exist.^{2, 3, 5} However, the full potential for music and the arts to strengthen health promotion is yet to be realised. ⁴ The Creative Change Project aims to identify the opportunities for community music in promoting health and social equity. It addresses the growing challenge of inequity by offering innovative and creative health promotion strategies.

Program implementation

The Creative Change Project is led by Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet with a team based at Griffith University’s Creative Arts Research Institute. The project involves 4 in-depth case studies based in urban and regional Queensland, as well as across other parts of Australia, and a national mapping exercise. Each case study is implemented in close collaboration with community members and partner organisations; Big hART, Micah Projects, Play it Forward, and QMF.

Jonathon Welch in rehearsal with Play It Forward, 2023. Photo by Play it Forward.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning

The Creative Change Project draws on a range of rigorous, in-depth qualitative research methods to explore the ways community music is operating in contexts of entrenched inequity. Through co-design of research methods, collaborative analysis of data, and community-led development of outputs, the project team works to ensure outcomes are authentic, useful and relevant to the communities they are working with and also local, state and national social and health sector stakeholders.

Funding and resources

The Creative Change Project is funded by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and supported by internal resources from Griffith University. Additional in-kind support comes from partner organisations.

Key insights

Initial findings from the Creative Change Project demonstrate that community music can be an important resource for practice across the 5 action areas for health promotion, working in strengths-based ways to build equity within communities to enhance wellbeing. The following describes some examples from case studies that explore this potential for community music to work across the 5 action areas for health promotion.

1. Personal skill development
Developing personal skills through community music participation is evident in the regional Queensland towns of Charleville and Cunnamulla. Participants spoke clearly about how musical activities are valuable opportunities to develop new skills. For some, the development of musical skills afforded access to new opportunities for work, travel, and socialising. Those who accessed music education during their schooling experienced skill development that went hand in hand with a sense of connection with peers, feeling included, and pride in their accomplishments. These had flow-on effects related to the way they engaged with their peers and community outside of the musical context. Other participants described how developing musical skills allowed them to overcome barriers related to social anxiety, lack of confidence, or disability, and to actively engage with their community. In some cases, participants described a sense of pride and responsibility in contributing to their community through their musical skills.  

Community members and musicians during the QMF Music Trails, Swing On In event, 2023. Photo by QMF.

2. Strengthening community action
Music can help communities come together to develop and promote a shared identity and vision for the future. For example, an inclusive community band, The Whoopee-Do Crew, plays an integral role in the social fabric of Meanjin’s/Brisbane’s inner-city suburb of Kurilpa (West End). The band plays weekly in a public park, sharing community stories through song. These public expressions of shared identity and social ties between people from different backgrounds and social statuses are important for a functioning community. In other parts of Australia, participants in other case studies also reported that community music made a positive impact on diversity and inclusion. Importantly, those in some communities affected by racism felt it made a difference to them and the community they live in.

3. Re-orienting health services
This area of health promotion is about supporting health services to embrace an expanded mandate that supports wellbeing broadly and acknowledges the social, political, economic and environmental factors at play. Working collaboratively with the Creative Change Project, Queensland social sector organisation, Micah Projects recently embarked on a pilot music program designed to encourage people to engage in music together to build social connection. Located in Meanjin/Brisbane, Micah Projects supports people experiencing a range of challenges and marginalisation including family and domestic violence, homelessness and poverty, and mental illness. The program involved a group of participants attending a range of different live music events together. Researchers discussed ways music supported social connection with the participants who reported developing close bonds with each other and a sense of belonging within their communities.

4. Creating supportive environments
Our societies are complex systems. Health promotion works to encourage mutual respect and care for each other and for the planet, supporting participation in dialogue and action about building the types of places we want to live in. In Warrane/Sydney, the Dreambox Collective, a musician and artist collective, partners with local and national organisations to produce creative work and performances with the specific purpose of developing meaningful connections for positive social impact. By partnering with non-government organisations and charities to host concerts and other events, and building diverse artists’ skill sets, Dreambox Collective amplifies marginalised voices and supports community cohesion. Their work demonstrates how creativity, and music in particular, can foster the supportive environments that are needed for communities to develop robust dialogue about who they want to be and how they want to face future challenges together. Without such supportive environments, efforts towards health and social equity are stifled.

Dreambox Collective in Sydney/ Warrane. Photo by Dreambox Collective.

5. Building healthy public policy
Health promotion is not just about healthcare, but about creating social conditions where people can thrive. It involves advocating for public policy that supports the social determinants of health, including education, justice, income and welfare, housing, taxation, the environment, and more. Big hART’s national Songs for Freedom project exemplifies how community music can advocate for healthy and just public policy. Songs for Freedom tours nationally with a concert featuring original songs created by the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi peoples residing in the Pilbara town of Ieramugadu/Roebourne, WA. The work is led by the community’s Elders, with its foundations in workshops supported by the family of John Pat, who died in police custody in 1983, triggering the Royal Commission into deaths in custody. The Songs for Freedom 2023 national tour advocated for raising the age of criminal responsibility from the current age of 10 years old. As one audience member said, the production demonstrates ‘the importance of showing the strength of communities, to show people that they can come up with better solutions for their young people, rather than jail.’ The concert and related work are being recognised by policymakers and is contributing to the ongoing campaign for national policy change.

Performers at the Songs for Freedom concert in Naarm (Melbourne), 2023. Photo by Big hART.

Opportunities for others

Outcomes from the Creative Change Project demonstrate the importance of working with communities to draw on their creative and culture assets in work to address health and social inequity. Health promotion researchers and practitioners can draw on the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion as a framework for understanding and strengthening how community music and the arts are working in ways that support equity.

Strengthening collaboration across arts, health and social sectors in Queensland and beyond is an important step that offers unique and powerful opportunities to address entrenched disadvantage.

Visit creativechange.org.au for more information.

For Further Information

Dr. Emma Heard, Research Fellow
Creative Arts Research Institute, Griffith University
e.heard@griffith.edu.au

Sources

1. Walton, J., Bartleet, B. L. Music, Health and Wellbeing: An Overview of Current Literature: Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Creative Arts Research Centre, Griffith University with Health and Wellbeing Queensland; 2021. https://qso.com.au/uploads/QSO-Health-and-Wellbeing-Report.pdf

2. Bartleet, B. L. A Conceptual Framework for Understanding and Articulating the Social Impact of Community Music. International Journal of Community Music 2023;16(1):31-49. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm_00074_1

3. Bartleet, B. L., Heard, E. Can Community Music Contribute to More Equitable Societies? A Critical Interpretive Synthesis Social Justice Research 2024; 37:108–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-024-00431-3

4. Corbin, J. H., et al., eds. Arts and Health Promotion: Tools and Bridges for Practice, Research and Social Transformation: Springer International Publishing 2021.

5. Heard, E., Bartleet, B.L.B, & Woolcock, G. (2023). Exploring the role of place-based arts initiatives in addressing social inequity in Australia: A systematic review. Australian Journal of Social Issues 58(3), 550-572. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.257

Case study submitted by The Creative Change Project including Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet (ARC Future Fellow), Research Fellow Dr Emma Heard, PhD candidates Pearly Black, Flora Wong and Joel Spence, and Communications Officer Dr Matt Hsu from the Creative Arts Research Institute, Griffith University. The Creative Change Project thanks and acknowledges their partner organisations, Big hART, Micah Projects, Play it Forward and QMF. Content was adapted from a presentation at the Fostering Creative Health Conference, Melbourne University 2024.