Artists’ Care: Supporting musicians working in challenging and complex contexts

Aug 13

6 min read

Takeaways from a knowledge exchange event bringing together cultural organisations, sector stakeholders, practitioners, and researchers to address the wellbeing of musicians working in challenging and complex contexts.

Posted to Blue Cabin: August 12th 2026

Artists’ Care is a one-day knowledge exchange event bringing together cultural organisations, sector stakeholders, practitioners, and researchers to address the wellbeing of musicians working in challenging and complex contexts (e.g. immigration detention settings, prisons, or care settings) or with people who may have experienced multi-layered vulnerabilities (e.g. people in refugee or asylum-seeking contexts, and care-experienced young people).

Blue Cabin associate artist, Carol Bowden, attended this year’s event at the University of York. She shares her reflections on the day, and what it means to be supported as a freelance artist.

Representing Blue Cabin at the event

This knowledge exchange event focused on the question ‘How can supervision and care for those working in challenging and complex settings be structured, funded and embedded within organisational structures to ensure that artists and frontline staff are appropriately supported, maintaining the quality of their work and sustaining careers?’

As a freelance musician, who has spent many years working as a community musician, from co-delivery to supervision, mentoring to respectful remuneration, it shouldn’t, but does feel rare to be respected and supported as an artist, particularly when working freelance. When I heard about this event I was really keen to attend, however, it fell on the day that I work for Blue Cabin and I would be gutted to miss a day of sessions, and also, in practical terms, to lose a day’s wage.

I was absolutely delighted when Blue Cabin offered me the opportunity to attend the Artists’ Care Event as their representative, with the day’s pay I would have lost otherwise. Not only was I excited to be representing an organisation that is already doing so much to care for and support their artists and staff members, and who are also engaged in learning and contributing their knowledge to the sector, but as a researcher myself, I was keen to be able to add my own voice.

I travelled down with colleagues from We Make Culture and we arrived, on a scorching hot day with the friendliest and most helpful of taxi drivers, at the University of York. On entering the building I was over the moon to see so many familiar faces, colleagues from Sound Sense and people who I have met online through training and networking over the years. It was almost like a reunion and everyone was buzzing with excitement.

The day was well designed, with opportunities to chat over refreshments (very important to note that refreshments were perfect and delicious) and then kicking off the day with a welcome from the team and a fun, memory challenging icebreaker (which I failed at). We got a brief overview of Phase 1 of the Artists’ Care research project, followed by provocation presentations:

Provocation presentations

★ What is Wellbeing? with Naomi Norton

★ Overview of Wellbeing in the Sector with Julia Puebla Fortier

★ Impressions of Wellbeing in the Sector with audience input

★ Phase 1 of the Artists’ Care project with Laura Caulfield and Mary-Rose Puttick

★ Artists’ Care in Practice with representatives from Hear Me Out, Irene Taylor Trust, and Good Vibrations

Supporting artists’ wellbeing

I often sing the praises of Blue Cabin when speaking to other community musicians, and it doesn’t surprise me when I see their jaws drop in awe. There are only a small handful of organisations across the UK whose practice of ethical care, and the wellbeing of their artists and staff, is embedded in their culture. These organisations work in settings where their artists are engaging with people who may have experienced multi-layered vulnerabilities, for example early life experiences, immigration, asylum, detention, mental health, or intersectional discrimination.

They understand the invisible labour and emotional costs of working in complex contexts, and they support their artists and staff by building into their culture a number of acts of care, such as respectful remuneration, supervision, reflective conversations, mentoring, and training. These organisations are, unfortunately, the exception, not the norm.

It was exciting to be in the same space as like-minded people who are passionate about the work they do in their communities, are respectful of the invisible labour of their emotional work, and energised to make cultural shifts to improve conditions for the workforce.

Key challenges for practitioners

The key challenges to practitioners identified during the event were:

Emotional impact/vicarious trauma of supporting vulnerable participants
Physical and emotional safety in challenging settings
Ambiguity around roles, responsibilities, safeguarding, duty of care, and boundaries
Insufficient support for participants with extra needs
Additional stress of working solo, inadequate pay for hours worked, precarity, lack of support
Many don’t have access to physical or psychosocial support or managerial supervision to manage experiences and concerns

Wellbeing and Seligman’s PERMA+4 framework

We explored what was meant by “wellbeing” such as using music for wellbeing and health, making music for those with specific wellbeing or health needs, wellbeing through musicking for musicians, and the wellbeing and health of musicians. This was presented using various theories, but specifically focused on Seligman’s PERMA+4 framework for work-related wellbeing, performance and psychology.

This is the bit that I was particularly excited about as I had read about Seligman’s PERMA framework when developing my research and podcast into How Has Covid-19 Impacted The Community Musician? The welcome, hidden costs, adaptability and recovery in practice. It rang so true to me that I have held this in my mind as a framework for my life and working practice since. The PERMA framework stands for:

P – Positive Emotions: Cultivating feelings of hope, joy, gratitude, and contentment to broaden your perspective and build resilience.
E – Engagement: Experiencing “flow”—a state of deep, effortless absorption and focus when your skills match a challenging activity.
R – Relationships: Building and maintaining supportive, deep, and meaningful connections with family, friends, and colleagues.
M – Meaning: Having a sense of purpose and belonging to something larger than yourself (e.g., community, religion, or a cause).
A – Accomplishments: Pursuing and achieving goals, mastering new skills, and developing a sense of competence for its own sake.

More recently, there were four additional elements introduced:

Physical Health: Maintaining biological and functional health through good sleep, nutrition, and activity.
Growth Mindset: Believing that your abilities and intelligence can develop with effort.
Work (or Living) Environment: Ensuring your physical surroundings are safe, comfortable, and free of unnecessary distractions.
Economic Security: Having the financial stability and resources needed to meet your basic needs without persistent stress.

After spending our lunch picnicking with some of the delegates under the shade of a tarpaulin and admiring the variety of sunhats from a passing group of schoolchildren (the floral and frilly sun visor got the most admiration), we dug deeper into the PERMA framework, sharing examples of good and bad practice that we have experienced, rating how much each pillar of the framework can affect artists’ wellbeing, and what kind of building blocks would be needed to address and improve artists’ care.

Reflecting on the day

The day ended with plenaries where we gathered to discuss what had resonated with us, pose questions, and feedback into planning the next steps of the project. After some informal networking conversations and refreshments, I headed back to the train station with my We make Culture colleagues where we killed a bit of time before our trains with a cold beer in the pub and reflected back on the day.

I have since either seen or spoken to colleagues who were at the event and we are all still buzzing from the experience. There were ideas that challenged us, some we agreed wholeheartedly on and others that we definitely didn’t, but what it did do is provoke so much conversation and deepen the bonds that we build with our communities. Overall, I think the day itself was an act of care to myself, feeding into taking care of my own wellbeing, and that of my colleagues, on my journey as a freelance artist.

Thank you Carol for sharing your experience of the Artists’ Care knowledge exchange.

About Artists’ Care

You can find further information about the project and the research paper aton the following links:Centre for Music Education and Human Flourishing Artists’ Care landing page and the University of Wolverhampton Artists’ Care page (where the report and video are accessible).

Phase 1 of the project was led by Jennie Henley (Royal Northern College of Music), Laura Caulfield (University of Wolverhampton) and Mary-Rose Puttick (University of Wolverhampton) who each presented at the event.

Phase 2 of the project will be led by Naomi Norton (University of York), Victoria Kinsella (Birmingham City University) and Mary-Rose Puttick (University of Wolverhampton).