Do you support family work in children’s centres, libraries or community spaces? Wherever families congregate, music tends to happen, and The Family Music Hub is here to provide bespoke training and support for all those making music with young children and families.

The Family Music Hub is a new not-for-profit training provider set up to support anyone making music with 0-5 year olds and their families. Providing support for family workers, Early Years practitioners, library assistants, teachers, baby and toddler group leaders, volunteers, musicians, museum staff, community group leaders, and more, The Family Music Hub wants to champion, support and train this vital workforce across the UK.

Founded by music consultants and practitioners Rosie Adediran, Katie Neilson and Nicola Burke, The Family Music Hub was established out of the team’s mutual passion for family music making, their belief in its intrinsic value and their overlapping areas of research.

In 2022 they teamed up with Early Education and following a grant from Youth Music they delivered the first phase of their work: an action research project working with librarians, family workers and volunteers in the West Midlands. The findings from this research highlighted the need for more training and resources to support the workforce in making music with families and young children.

In 2023 they were awarded a further grant from Youth Music to develop the organisation and establish training programmes for family workers that can be rolled out across the UK. The Family Music Hub wants all families with children up to the age of 5 – regardless of cultural, social, geographical or economic background – to have access to meaningful family music making experiences. As a result they are developing a new approach  that puts parents and carers at the centre and which harnesses the unique skills and experience of each practitioner.

One family worker said:

“The Family Music Hub has enabled us to upskill our knowledge around music delivery in the children’s centres. It has highlighted what we already do well but also helped us reflect. We have helped parents recognise the importance of musical play and creating an enriched environment for musical exploration in their day-to-day home lives.”

Family Workers, Spurgeons, Birmingham

Music is a superpower, and music and singing with groups of families can go so far beyond just a whip through “wheels on the bus”. It has huge power and potential to bring about benefits to wellbeing, learning, communication skills, socialising, mental health, parenting tools and more. The Family Music Hub is here to support those making music regularly with families, putting research into practice through mutual discovery, increasing confidence and deepening knowledge through equipping them with tools and quality resources.

Want to find out more? Visit The Family Music Hub website and sign up to the mailing list to receive updates on training and other ways to join the community. Or get in touch via email at hello@thefamilymusichub.org.