That's When the Magic Happens

Professor Jane Edwards first arrived in Queensland in 1993. Appointed as the inaugural lecturer in music therapy in the Faculty of Music at the University of Queensland (UQ), Jane was course co-ordinator and sole academic lecturer for one of only two music therapy training venues in 
Australia at the time.

In 2000, after returning to UQ from nine months working at the University of Limerick, Ireland, 
Jane experienced the first spark that led to the development of Sing&Grow.

Dr Joanne Loewy, the founding Director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System, New York, was keynote speaker and presenter at the Australian Music Therapy Association Annual National Conference in Brisbane. 

Jane recalls Dr Loewy’s description of the music therapy work she did with groups of vulnerable 
parents and their infants. In that moment, the first seed of Sing&Grow was sown.

After that inspiring visit, when reading a weekend newspaper, Jane noticed a federal government advertisement calling for expressions of interest to develop programs to promote good practice in parenting for vulnerable children and their parents.

Working with music therapy research assistant, Brandy Walker, Jane’s tender was successful and funding commenced in 2001. She and Brandy predicted that the program would be well attended because many people believe music is good for babies.

There can often be very little uptake of parenting programs, a lot of parents don’t like being told they need help with their parenting ... Music was a way they could feel they are giving something good to their babies ... we did prove in its first iteration that Sing&Grow was better attended by referred parents than usual parenting programs.

I chose Playgroup Queensland as the auspice and had to use all my powers of persuasion ... I was determined that they were the best, they were so well aligned with what we were wanting to do ... It was wonderful as everything we needed was there.

Jane returned to Ireland in late 2000 but remained in the background of the early developments. As Jane explains, Sing&Grow was led by Vicky Abad, and in due course, by Kate Williams, both graduates of the Postgraduate Diploma in Music Therapy course Jane led at UQ from 1993-2000.

It was really taken to the stratosphere with the appointment of Vicky Abad as the [inaugural] Director. I had an advisory role in the beginning but gradually I was just there in the background. It was a 10-week weekly program with groups of referred parents which was supposed to go through the Logan corridor all up to north Queensland, but we didn’t have music therapists up there ... Vicky got on to that and had trained music therapists driving and flying all over the place.

Jane reflects on the legacy of Sing&Grow which was driven by her knowledge that music therapy can deliver positive outcomes for families wheren many other therapies struggle.

Sing&Grow has been such a success story, not because we got funding and the auspice, it’s a success because so many parents had beautiful experiences with their children which they otherwise wouldn’t have had.

There is so much research that shows if you can do something really good in those early years between the parent and infant, it sets the child up for life to be resilient, to be able to learn, to feel safe ... Music is a natural facilitator. I was always struck by the way the parent went on a journey from the beginning of the program, with leaving their child in a pusher beside them while everyone is singing, not looking at them, then by week three having the child on their lap with the child looking out ... then eventually, the real key is when the child turns around and they are looking at each other ... that’s when the magic happens ... music therapy can be the key to unlocking the capacities of that relationship.