South Tyneside domestic abuse charity runs music therapy project to support young people

SURT (Stopping Unsafe Relationships Together) is helping young people whose mental health has been impacted by relationship abuse through a music therapy project.

The South Tyneside-based charity works with children and young people who have been affected by relationship abuse.

The main purpose of SURT’s Music Is Therapy (MisT) is to help victims process their trauma, develop strategies for manging the impact of traumatic experiences upon their mental health and to support recovery.

Staff at SURT collaborated with Dean Stobbs, a music wellbeing practitioner, to offer specialist support to the young people who were taking part.

They were offered opportunities to reflect upon trauma and translated their lived experiences into song lyrics, which coupled with music composition were developed into creating songs and digital album covers.

Alongside SURT’s pilot MisT project, where one music single was created, the charity has created a further four songs with funding from the Postcode Neighbour Trust.

With the help of Harbourmasters Productions, each song produced covers experiences of intimate partner harm, honour based abuse, sexual and criminal exploitation - with a separate song created by the young people to reflect their views of a safe and healthy relationship.

Leanne Hansen, one of the managing directors at SURT, has revealed that the achievement of the project far exceeded all prior expectations.

She said: “We knew that a project like MisT would provide something innovative for young people affected by relationship abuse.

“We had high hopes of what we wanted the project to achieve, these have been far exceeded.

“We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for their belief in this approach to supporting recovery.”

Claire Amans, SURT’s other managing director, explained that the music produced during the project will be now used as resources to help further spread SURT’s message.

She added: “I am blown away by the creative content that the young people have produced throughout the project.

“We are excited to have a range of relationship abuse resources that can be used to educate and improve community awareness.”

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Dean Stobbs has praised the young people for how well they all bought into the project and the success of it.

He commented: “All of the young people involved in this project have been incredibly brave, they have pushed themselves beyond all expectations.

“They are now more confident, have increased musical knowledge and the positive impact upon their wellbeing is staggering.

“They now have a mindset that facilitates hope and recovery.

“As a Music Wellbeing Practitioner I am amazed by the success of the MisT Project and all that it has accomplished.”

Some of the young people who took part in the MisT project have given an insight into how it has helped them:

Em: “It’s been really nice to see everyone change and grow together.”

Margaret: “When I heard about the MisT Project I was sceptical at first, I had never done anything like this before.

“When I went to the first session I connected with people so fast, when I started singing in front of them I became more confident.”

McKenzie: ”Sometimes in difficult situations people need a bit of structure and MIST provided that for those involved.

“I really enjoyed the workshop, it was creative freedom.”

Kane: “Being part of MisT has been a really fun experience.

”Music in essence is a therapy to express yourself and vent your struggles and I have been able to do that.

“Creating music of our own and the design of album covers has been inspiring, to be able spread awareness to others in an entertaining way is exciting too.”

You can find out more about the work that SURT does by visiting: https://wearesurt.org/.