The Scottish Brass Band Association (SBBA) has announced that it is to pioneer a positive mental health and wellbeing strategy which it plans to roll out to all member bands during the next few months.

It follows the organisation's link with Mental Health First Aid England (MHFAE) instructor and advocate Tabby Kerwin and aims to support the mental health well-being of those involved in the Scottish brass band movement as it starts to prepare to a return to rehearsals, concerts and contests.

Priority

Taking the SBBA lead is Damian Martin, President of SBBA's Northern Counties Association, who told 4BR: "The long-term effects of Covid-19 has highlighted the need for better knowledge, understanding and support of players' mental health — and we believe it's the responsibility of brass band organisations at every level to make the mental health of their members a priority."

He added: "Performance anxiety to some extent, comes with the territory, but musicians will benefit from having mental health support and information available to bands and also from SBBA's implementation of practical measures such as calm and quiet zones on competition days."

Awareness

Tabby also highlighted the importance of intervention and understanding.

"In a society where at least 1 in 4 people encounter mental ill health issues at some point in their lives, and that musicians are three times more likely to experience them, awareness of mental health in banding has never been more important."

She added: "I'm delighted SBBA is taking such a progressive lead to recognise the importance of supporting the mental health of its musicians and has developed a strategy to make subsidised mental health awareness training available to all its member bands.

Our programme will not just make musicians more aware of mental health, but also give them active and practical wellbeing skills to help members to be healthy and flourish."

Workshops

SBBA will make fully subsidised mental health awareness training available to all its members, with a strategy intended to tackle this issue by supporting relationships between band personnel, officials, musical directors, adjudicators and critics with the aim of helping to ease time and personal pressures.

SBBA will be rolling out a series of four-hour workshops — either face-to-face or online -for a maximum of 20 people at a time, led and designed by Tabby, and based on national and international statistics, expert information of science and positive psychology.

The first part of the course will cover mental health awareness before moving on to wellbeing and self-care with a specific focus on the needs of musicians.

Champion

It is hoped that, in the development of a sound mental health culture, each band will appoint a designated 'Wellbeing Champion', who would have an understanding of common mental health issues and the ability to spot early warning signals, and also possesses the skills to promote positive wellbeing and the confidence to support a person in distress.

Tabby added: "While this is a bespoke programme tailored to SBBA, we want to hear from bands on what they would like to see included. We are keen to stress that the mental health strategy will place no extra bureaucracy on a band.

The Wellbeing Champion does not have to have any previous experience in the field, just empathy for their fellow human beings and an enthusiasm to help a colleague. The intention is to build up a network of support for bands across the country."

Our programme will not just make musicians more aware of mental health, but also give them active and practical wellbeing skills to help members to be healthy and flourishTabby Kerwin

Positive powers

Speaking about the new initiative, a SBBA spokesperson added: "By taking these initial steps, we hope we can support individual musicians, decrease the levels of mental health issues and allow our movement to become a supportive and therapeutic environment with an emphasis on the positive powers of music."

Further information:

If your band is interested in the initiative, please contact Damian at: brass_monkey@tiscali.co.uk

They should give details of their nominated attendee and will be informed of the potential dates and times for the workshops.

While free course spaces are limited to one per band, further places are available at a cost of £30/head should bands have more than one interested party.