A key takeaway for me at Canada’s first Social Prescribing Conference is that we’ve only just begun. Every great movement must begin. By beginning, we become. Admittedly, my colleagues and I attended the conference to see where we might contribute as an arts-based community organization. While we didn’t receive pat answers or direct pathways, we met people, engaged in conversation and began to think about how we can be involved. In retrospect, I think that was the point of the conference. Beginning, exploring, connecting, conversing, becoming. We heard about several compelling examples of social prescription in Canada. Dr. Grace Park and her team in the Fraser Health Care Authority in BC have developed a systemically integrated SP approach for older adults. The partnership between Fraser Health, the provincial government, United Way BC, BC Divisions of Family Practices, Fraser Health Teams, Fraser Health Patient and Family Advisory Council and other nonprofit community organizations began in 2019 and is a leading model. Community Connectors play a critical role in the success of implementation and hold the community knowledge and put the legs on referrals by linking individuals to programs. Healthy Aging Alberta has developed a tool for SP assessment and case management used by a variety of professional and volunteers. Based on social determinants of health, this tool looks at seven domains based on Alberta’s health aging framework: physical health, safety and security, social engagement, physical environment, personal wellbeing, mental health and social supports. This tool is being used in Edmonton to support older adults in living in community. There is a SP student movement in Canada. In 2022, the Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective was establishing joining a global network of students champions in six other countries. The objective of this group is to call for action by students, staff in health care and community organizations and faculty/administration at postsecondary institutions. The Collective believes their efforts will shape the social prescribing movement and the future of our health system. We also learned that SP is extended to family caregivers. Various provincial family caregiving organizations are developing SP pathways to build resilience, social connectedness, decreased reliance on healthcare services to support family caregivers with their overwhelming responsibilities, financial strain and system navigation. Family Caregivers of British Columbia have caregiver support specialists provide wellness planning, healthcare navigation and community connections for family caregivers. The elephant in the room for most of the conference is how SP is funded in Canada. It appears as though the CISP is strategically encouraging multiple expressions of SP to bubble up locally, having the communities themselves figure out implementation pathways and funding models. And perhaps this is the way of influence, bottom up, upstream programming that creates a demand and groundswell with compelling results that governments will not be able to deny. The recent CISP report claims that for every $1 spent on SP in Canada, the ROI is $4.30. And so we think about the arts in this movement. Our colleagues from the Mississauga Arts Council were also there, and along with us, were learning and exploring and becoming. They have launched a 2-year pilot with their ArtsCare SP program to benefit mental health of individuals living in Mississauga. While historically our work at Room 217 has been and will continue to be supporting caregivers with music care tools, training and standards to improve care outcomes, we have been developing a music wellness model. Salutogenic or preventative in approach, we define music wellness as interacting with music in a way that contributes to holistic health and flourishing. Our research shows this happens in specific ways. So we may very well have several contributions to make as we consider our intersection with the social prescription movement. In my mind, music as social prescription is a pure bullseye. Music by its very nature is connective. Music contributes positively to an individual’s state of being and can catalyzes improved mood. Doing music contributes to health and wellbeing such as increased oxygenation, cross-lateral brain activity. Musical engagement improves quality of life in every human domain.  So we continue to explore the application of music care and music wellness within the arena of SP. Stay tuned.

Social prescribing (SP) is a practice I became familiar with at our 2019 Power of Music Conference in Nottingham, England. At the time, the National Academy of Social Prescribing (NASP) had just been formed. The NASP defines SP as connecting people to activities, groups and support that improve their health and wellbeing. SP links people to non-medical supports in their community to address issues such as loneliness, debt or stress due to financial pressures or poor housing. Since then, the NASP story has been impressive including 12% reductions in GP appointments, 15-20% reduction in secondary care costs, measurable improvements in wellbeing, physical and mental health, and an ROI of £3.50 for £1 invested. A key achievement has been to set up a healthcare integration program to support health and care providers and partnerships to embed social prescribing. So it was with keen interest my colleagues and I attended Canada’s first Social Prescribing Conference held in Toronto at the end of September 2024. Convened by the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing (CISP), a national collaboration hub anchored by the Canadian Red Cross, several hundred early adopters and curious folks like us gathered. The energy and excitement was palpable. Dr. Kate Mulligan , the Scientific Director and champion of social prescribing in Canada set the stage, proposing SP as the pathway from health treatment to wellness creation. The CISP encourages models that connect people with healthcare, social services and community supports to enhance health and wellbeing. The goal of CISP is to bring together a diverse network of health practitioners, researchers, academics, system leaders, funders and others to share learnings, mobilize knowledge, build evidence and influence policy. The opening speaker, Elder Dr. Albert Marshall from the Mi’kmaw First Nation in Nova Scotia set the stage by sharing knowledge and wisdom of his people, including ‘two-eyed seeing’ - seeing the best of traditional Indigenous ways and the best of current western medicine. Applied to SP, we understand that the clinical medium saves lives and the social medium makes life worth living. A variety of panels, workshops and posters provided content for the conference. Notably, SP leaders from Singapore, Brazil, United States, England, and Australia shared where they are at with social prescription. Clearly, this global movement, supported by the World Health Organization, is underway. The WHO has developed a Social Prescribing Toolkit which outlines steps required to introduce SP and includes sample materials which can be adapted to the local context. In the final plenary session, we considered the future of healthcare in Canada. While there are no pat and easy answers, SP is seen as a response to ‘sick care’ through upstream preventative programming. It requires a shift, from a medical model where power is held and directed and the status quo is maintained to a social model where power is shared and everyone sees themselves in it. As Jodeme Goldhar, co-founder of the Foundation for Integrated Care Canada stated, ‘SP requires a shift from egocentric to ecocentric thinking.’ A key takeaway for me is that SP requires a new way of seeing, a new collective mindset. SP is all about working together in community, leveraging new ways of being and doing, working in partnership. The endgame may be a road to recovery for the Canadian healthcare system, were we live in less isolated and more connected communities optimizing health and wellbeing for all.  If you want to learn more about SP in Canada, then subscribe to the CISP newsletter for ongoing updates, resources, and opportunities.

As Room 217 broadens its reach to include training educators in both elementary and secondary schools, our mission has expanded to help address social and emotional learning (SEL) outcomes through the power of music. SEL plays a crucial role in shaping resilient, purpose-driven, and socially successful students, and music is an ideal medium to support this essential area of human development. Social and emotional learning encompasses a set of skills and competencies that allow children to develop healthy and supportive relationships by fostering positive self-perception, empathy for peers, effective collaboration, and a strong sense of identity. Through SEL, children learn to identify and manage their emotions in healthy ways, build personal resilience, and develop coping strategies. Additionally, SEL aims to amplify students voice, advance equity, and strengthen partnerships between teachers, students and their families. RESEARCH suggests that SEL is integral not only to academic success but also to personal well-being, mental health, and overall life satisfaction. Educators have long recognized that music serves as a powerful conduit for students to identify, express, and connect with their emotions. A wide range of programs and platforms now exists to help teachers integrate music with mindfulness activities and breathing practices, creating a calm and focused learning environment. For example, Save The Music Foundation, in partnership with the Center for Arts Education and Social Emotional Learning, offers a professional learning program specifically designed to intersect music with SEL Student Empowerment Through SEL in Music Education (savethemusic.org) . —empowering students through music education. Programs like these equip teachers with the resources to help students build agency and self-efficacy by centering students' lived experiences, voices, and cultural narratives. Engaging with music—whether through creation, performance, or listening—allows students to connect with the art form in meaningful ways, fostering skills that extend beyond the music classroom. Music helps children and youth draw connections between their own lives and the shared threads of the human experience. Participation in music-making, whether in a group performance or a solo endeavor, can build self-confidence and develop the collaborative skills necessary to achieve common goals. Additionally, listening to lyrics, whether from contemporary songs or music of the past, can help students feel less isolated as they navigate the complexities of growing up, understanding relationships, and coping with change, crisis, heartbreak, and loss. Teachers who intentionally integrate music into their educational settings can effectively embed and sustain SEL practices within their classrooms. Having been a music teacher myself, I was always aware of the dual role music played in my students' lives. The curriculum I followed was designed to be purposeful, challenging, and exciting, offering a refreshing departure from the rest of their school day. But beyond that, it provided opportunities for students to develop self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Music demands goal-setting and perseverance, yet it also brings joy. I cherished the moments when my students lost their self-consciousness, whether playing drums in a group, singing together, or conquering a challenging task I had set for them. These experiences often fostered a sense of belonging, mutual respect, and healthy collaboration, where every student felt a sense of agency. The skills developed in the music classroom are highly transferable to life beyond school. Over my 25 years in education, I have observed a decline in discipline and determination among students. I recall one student who initially wanted to quit learning the ukulele because the strings hurt her fingers. When I encouraged her to persevere, explaining that the discomfort would pass as her fingers grew stronger, she stormed out of the classroom. However, as the weeks went by, my students began to wear their hardening fingertips as badges of honor, a sign that they had been practicing at home and were willing to endure minor discomforts for the sake of progress. Eventually, the discouraged student came around, mastering a beautiful song that we performed together for the school community. The pride she felt in overcoming adversity was evident, and this experience served as a powerful lesson in resilience. In today’s culture of quick fixes and immediate gratification, opportunities for developing self-discipline are becoming scarce. The ukulele became more than just an instrument for my students; it was a source of comfort, a medium for expressing their experiences, and a symbol of personal achievement. It represented a feather in their cap of strengths and abilities, a tangible reminder of their capacity to overcome challenges.  Music offers educators a valuable tool for fostering SEL in their students, but beyond that, it is one of the most deeply rewarding and purely enjoyable ways to experience what it means to be human. Music connects us to others in profoundly human ways and equips us with the skills needed to thrive in today’s world. As students and teachers step into a new school year, may music fill their hearts, lives, and minds with the potential to bring out the best in themselves, their well-being, and their relationships with others.

We all know that music makes us feel great. Listening to our favorite tunes can relax us, make us want to dance, evoke pleasurable states of mind, spark our emotions, intensify social bonding, and bring back fond memories. A 2021scholarly REVIEW of literature on the effects of music confirms that what we perceive as good music significantly contributes to psychological well-being. Music exerts various physiological effects on the human body, mediated via the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It can induce changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, electrodermal skin conductivity, muscle tension, and peripheral temperature (Blood and Zatorre, 2001; Ferreri et al., 2019; Salimpoor et al., 2011). Chills evoked by highly pleasurable music are physiological markers of intense ANS activation (Mori and Iwanaga, 2017). Listening to music we love can increase cerebral blood flow, stimulating the brain's reward centers and releasing dopamine, the ultimate feel-good hormone. One STUDY even found that music stimulates opioid release, carrying with it the potential for pain relief. But what about the feel-good impact of creating music? The physiological, cognitive and emotional impacts mentioned above are even more impressive when one takes part in music-making, themselves. I'm not talking about the job satisfaction you might feel from being a member of the Metropolitan Opera, the Berlin Symphony, or Taylor Swift’s touring band. Just being part of a local community choir, drumming group, or a Friday night line dancing class—where the boot stomps and hand claps are all part of what sounds great to your ears—can make your heart burst with joy. Music performance requires meticulous motor control where timing, sequence and spatial organization are needed to play an instrument and follow the designs of musical rhythm. My teammate and colleague at Room 217 finds intense joy, satisfaction, and delight playing in local symphonies and orchestras, both professionally and on an amateur level and despite long rehearsal hours and utterly grueling demands, it’s sheer, unparalleled fun for her. Intense work schedules and life responsibilities, don’t stand in the way of an opportunity to play instruments, forge friendships, and have the best Friday night imaginable. It comes down to her and her flute, piccolo or saxophone, and her orchestra mates all being part of something larger, better and connected through making music. From time immemorial, music has brought people together in ceremonial and spiritual places, for enjoyment, concerts, and performances. This has always required people to come together for the creation and appreciation of music. Before recordings, the only way to experience music was live and usually involved connecting with others. Our primal response to music is one of safety and comfort, from an evolutionary perspective, contributing to our survival. Perhaps it still does. We are experiencing an epidemic of social isolation and loneliness. The era of COVID-19 certainly didn’t help, but it did condone the habit of people retreating into their own spaces after a long day of work, alone with the company of our devices. Even in those dark days of isolation, music served as a tool for connection during the lockdowns of the pandemic as it gave people fanbases and communities to be a part of through social media. Music could unite people even when coming together was forbidden. I’m hoping, however, that the distant call of the drum, with its compelling rhythms, calls people back to come together in music once again. Being part of a collective is always a soul-affirming experience, but when the effort at hand is music, there is an even more sophisticated level of connection. The acts of keeping a beat and singing in harmony require listening, synchronizing, and interacting subtly and deeply with others. RESEARCH indicates that there is a neurohormonal reaction created with interpersonal synchrony that releases endorphins, another feel-good hormone. This element of purposeful cooperation increases trust and allyship, fundamental factors in the evolutionary success of humankind and the development of social stability. Oxytocin, the "love drug" that our brains release, is found at higher levels in singers, both professional and amateur. This bonding neuropeptide likely contributes to the bonding experience; no wonder we sing lullabies to our babies at night. Returning to my days of learning to be a yoga teacher, I was told that singing opened the throat chakra, known as the Vishuddha, the fifth chakra in the body. When we sing, we strengthen our efforts to communicate our feelings, emotions, and thoughts with confidence. Our vocal cords vibrate in our throat when we sing, and these sound vibrations are thought to clear blockages in the throat chakra, easing the way to smoother self-expression. Our voice is an instrument of self-expression and creativity, and an open throat chakra is conducive to reducing stress.  Music has the potential to strengthen bonds in our society, helping us feel connected to our community and all of humanity. As the childhood song aptly tells us, "The more we get together, the happier we'll be." Joining your local choir, guitar or ukulele club, drumming circle, or recorder club could make you happier, create connections, ease your loneliness, give you the excuse for a fun night out, and leave you more fulfilled than you could ever imagine.

May is unquestionably my favourite time of the year. As an avid lover of birds and someone who feels a profound connection with the natural world, May is a veritable concert season for me and my family, who live in a cabin nestled in the heart of the woods. While dawn is still dark, a few shy notes from the earliest risers commence; brave souls chirping in the break of day. The burgeoning sound of tweets commences a willing collaboration with the spring peepers or small tree frogs, but soon takes over, entirely drowning out the gentle amphibious nocturnal love songs. Within minutes, the forest is resounding in full chorus, the melodic songs of thrushes, warblers and finches echoing through the trees like a symphony conducted by nature herself. These elaborate songs (we like to assign titles like, The Carnival Song, The Electric Whirly, The Water Droplet) are sung to attract mates, or are warning calls from migrants returning to their territories that they must defend. Who would have guessed that these creatures, no heavier than their hollow bones will allow, wield a profound influence on our autonomic nervous system? Rather than harbouring a bleary-eyed resentment for these innocent creatures who have woken us so early, immersing yourself in their song and sounds encourages our nervous system to responds in kind by shifting into the gentle cadence of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). This activation of the PSN triggers a cascade of physiological changes within us. Our heartbeat slows, our muscles relax, and a sense of balance and equilibrium washes over us. This profound shift isn't just a coincidence; it's an evolutionary response ingrained in our very being. Birds, like us, are keenly attuned to their surroundings, singing only when the environment is safe and free from danger. As such, the melodic tunes of songbirds serve as a sign of peace and safety, tapping into our primal instincts, signaling our nervous system to relax, rest and return to a place of equilibrium. We naturally wake in the morning with high levels of cortisol, this is our biological way of getting us up, alert and going. Layer on a cup of coffee and before we know it our heart is racing, our stress levels are mounting, and the day carries on as it starts, at a frenetic pace. There is much we can do to start the day on a more calm and intentional way. Taking your hot cuppa joe outside, feeling the early morning sun on your face and just listening to bird song are interventions that are not only healthful and relaxing but deeply satisfying and enjoyable. In the realm of music care, harnessing the therapeutic power of birdsong can amplify the healing benefits for both caregivers and those they care for. By incorporating these sounds from nature into relaxation sessions, therapy sessions, or simply creating a serene environment where the sounds of nature abound, caregivers can create spaces of tranquility and restoration. Researchers from Kings College London published a study STUDY in 2018 examining the effects of bird song and interactions with nature on individuals’ mental health. The study revealed that bird song not only positively impacted anxiety, depression, and general wellbeing but it also helped individuals’ self-regulation, allowing for deeper concentration, and focus. I, myself can attest to this as I sit at my computer with a noticeably tamed and less tangential mind while being serenaded by my feathered companions singing their complex harmonies outside the windows. The gentle stimulation of birdsong, while not being distracting is found to help relieve fatigue that impairs concentration.  Whether being serenaded at the start of the day, enjoying the company of sweet birdsong throughout the day, or even witnessing the sun being sung to sleep at day's end, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude for these fleeting weeks. It's a time when the courageous Wood Thrush, the vibrant Yellow Warbler, the cheerful Gold Finch, the ever-present Robin, the haunting Whippoorwill, and an array of other feathered friends tirelessly fill the air with their melodies. They sing not just for love, lust, and territorial instincts but simply for the sheer joy of it, as confirmed by scientists and felt in the depths of our souls.