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As part of PRS for Music’s On with the Show campaign, BAPAM and present a series of webinars to support creators as they get back to performing live. Facilitated by Dr Terry Clark from the , who has a particular interest in creativity, mental practice and performance psychology, the series provides a safe space for members to reflect on the past year and their creative practice.

Terry Clark is Research Fellow in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music and an honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Terry’s research focuses on the assessment and development of performance skills, experiential learning, and stress measurement and management.

Established 30 years ago, BAPAM is the largest provider of Performing Arts Medicine in the UK with coverage across the four nations and a growing Directory of over 200 approved clinicians.

PRS Members’ Fund was built to support PRS members struggling financially, physically or emotionally – whether that’s with financial help, housing, mental health or physical health issues.

Terry Clark will be joined by experts in creativity over the six-week series to facilitate participants to:

• Share their experience and practice
• Help members to build confidence and deal with their inner critic
• Find their voice, understand what drives them
• Learn more about what creativity is
• Build mental and physical stamina to get back to work safely and build a network and stay connected

Workshops will run on: 5 November, 12 November, 19 November, 26 November, 3 December and 10 December. All sessions will take place from 11 am to 1 pm. Zoom meeting details will be sent prior to each events.

PRS Members can for the whole series or for individual sessions.

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The sessions are free but spaces are limited and there will be 2 sessions per month till June this year. This series of workshops follows in the footsteps of a health workshop which took place in September last year. So why did the want to expand and present this series? We spoke to Chief Executive Charlotte Penton-Smith:

“At RSM, we are acutely aware of the devastating impact the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the profession and we have been doing all we can to support those whose lives have been affected. As such, in September 2020 we launched a Fit to Play, Mental Health and Return to Work webinar. Run in partnership with BAPAM, this webinar was set up to support musicians heading back to work after a long period of lockdown and provided guidance on assessing whether work offered to musicians is safe in light of threats posed by COVID-19. RSM received a great deal of positive feedback and as such, we decided to expand this programme and launch a series of 12, more Ģ��tv webinars, again in partnership with BAPAM. Funded by RSM, this series addresses subjects that can affect all those in the profession, such as hearing health, performance anxiety and pain management, as well as looking at more specific areas including physical health for string and woodwind players and vocal health for singers.��

We have been delighted to be able to offer this series of free webinars to the profession. With BAPAM’s medical expertise, this series provides an extremely effective way of offering Ģ��tv advice and guidance to musicians throughout the UK, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. In addition, it is also increasing awareness of the work of both RSM and BAPAM, enabling us to continue to provide vital assistance to the profession, at times when it is needed the most.”

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BACP and BAPAM registered therapist, Beverley Hills is a member of our steering group working to develop and implement the new bursary scheme. In this guest blog, Beverley shares her story and personal reflections on becoming a therapist, and speaks to the importance of improving diversity among practitioners supporting mental health in the arts.��

Who am I? Actress, Writer, West End Wendy in a few musicals; I’m also a qualified Psychotherapist, Counsellor and Clinical Supervisor with a client list full of fellow creatives because not only do I get the artistic world, I also inhabit it. Here’s how it all started…

Everybody has a story and my own journey into becoming a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist is quite an elaborate one. Bear with me…

It began when, as a successful TV actress and children’s TV presenter, I saw an initiative run by Equity, the performers union, and Skillset, now Screen Skills, recruiting people with experience of the entertainment industry to train to be media careers advisors, at first specifically for actors/actresses.

I was catapulted back to my school days when we had our one and only careers advice session at age 15, just before we were to be thrown out of the relative safety of a sink educational institution and into the merciless world of un/employment. When asked ‘so, what career did you have in mind?’ I answered without hesitation; ‘I want to be an actress Sir.’ His laughter rang out along the long shabby tea beige corridors of the underfunded sink school and followed me out into the street, ringing in my ears for the rest of my teens until I ran away to the circus, namely becoming a dresser at the RSC in Stratford; Oh halcyon days!

Anyway cut to Equity’s initiative. I jumped at the chance to be able to help people in an industry I was so familiar with, feast or famine, rejection and fleeting fame; I knew the pitfalls only too well, scorn and ridicule followed by chip wrapping adulation and was delighted when I was appointed as one of only three careers advisors in the country trained to deliver I.A.G (Information, Advice and Guidance) to performers.

Whilst delivering this service I came across a recurring event, namely whenever I asked my client the question ‘so how can I help you today?’, invariably there would be tears, floods of them; at last someone was taking them and their profession seriously with ne’er a mention of getting a ‘proper job.’ Someone got it.

However, equipped as I was to advise about industry entry and exit routes, CV, letter writing and action plans etc, IAG didn’t cover any in-depth personal development work and I didn’t feel able to contain so much emotion; their cups overfloweth to such an extent that one client spent the whole session sobbing.

I knew I had to learn to contain these sessions in an authentic way so I enrolled on a 10-week introductory course in Counselling Skills. Once a week I’d bob over to The City Lit and learnt some amazing things, how to listen for instance. Easy right? We all do it! Er… actually no we don’t. Whist the other person is talking, the majority of us spend time formulating our own replies.

The die was cast. I was hungry for more. I became deeply interested in empowering people, watching them grow in confidence as they began to get work in the industry, change direction or even find the courage to leave. Writers and Directors, Producers and Camera people, etc began to seek out my assistance. I held Careers Advice workshops going into film academies, colleges and industry organisations (I got myself a small teaching certificate along the way). As my client list grew I found myself wondering how I could help on a different level, so I found myself enrolling on the one year certificate in Counselling level 2 at City Lit.

This one-year Certificate is more in-depth as it involves a lot of personal experiential work, reflective journals and essays. I was a writer already (I had an M.A in Screenwriting) but had to learn to write academically which was a huge barrier to learning for me and projected me right back to my sink school in Birmingham and the derision of the Careers Advice Person who, after holding his sides crying with laughter in my face, gave me a slip of paper with the time of an interview at the local factory on it.

Halfway through the Certificate course my father died. It was a blow that knocked me back a year.

The following year I restarted at the Mary Ward Centre in Bloomsbury. The college is a draughty but wonderful Georgian building and although it was hard starting again, new wounds to add to the old, I managed to finish the course.

Then my mother fell gravely ill and my plans were once again put on hold. I moved to the seaside and began renovating an old house so she could come and live out the rest of her days with me. Just as I completed the renovation she died. Another year of mourning during which I became a seaside landlady and hated it; washing sheets and smiling at guests as they dripped egg and ketchup over my beautiful Victorian tablecloth, memories of becoming a counsellor still lingering in my heart.

Acting dried up, voice overs dried up. The Careers Advice funding ran out. Canterbury College offered me some supply teaching on the media course, then promptly gave me a BTech to run, which was way out of my remit. I lasted a day. I stood in front of a class full of disruptive sullen 16-year olds who clearly didn’t want to be there and the biggest little word came sailing into my head. No. Teaching wasn’t what I was meant for so how could I inspire? The bell rang and we all left.

In the canteen grabbing a Twix for the journey home a woman began speaking to me as if she’d known me all her life. ‘Well, with this weather I’ll never make the party she wanted helium balloons but I haven’t got time what with the cake and all what are you up to…?’ To this day I don’t know why but my subconscious blurted out; ‘I’m looking to start my counselling Diploma but I think I’ve left it too late as there’s a two-year cut off between the Certificate and the Diploma.’ (which was true). ‘Ooh’ she said ‘I teach on the Diploma course, we started yesterday. Come with me.’ I followed her to a table where another woman was sat trying to eat a messy sandwich with dignity.
‘Sally, it’s not too late for this lady to start the Diploma is it, she can catch up can’t she?’
‘Have you got your Certificate?’ she mumbled
‘Y���’
‘Great, we’re down in numbers, you can start next week.’

And that’s how I found myself on the final leg of qualifying to become a counsellor.

The interesting constant I found on this journey is that, just like school, on all of my courses I found myself to be the only black in the village and an artsy one to boot. On the 10-week course it was an all-female cohort, the Certificate course had two white guys and my Diploma class once again was all white women. Why?, I asked myself. Looking on the various directories at the time I saw that counselling seemed to be the preserve of white middle class women, not that I have anything against that, but is the preserve indicative of the audience? Where were all the black counsellors? The black Artists like me? Surely there was a need? It dawned on me; most of my fellow students lived in the comfortable burbs with their families had partners and or a paying job to help fund them, in other words they were supported in a traditional lifestyle. So the inference I drew was that in many of these situations, men went out to work while women educated themselves, so what happens if the men want to do the same? So many questions.

I was claiming income support at the time and so had a greatly reduced rate otherwise I couldn’t have afforded it. As well as the course fees there are books to pay for, your own therapy and when it comes time for a placement there is Supervision to fund as well so could it be a financial thing as well? Definitely, but what else was missing here? Pride? Stigma?

Coming from a Black, Asian, minority ethnic background I know how fiercely proud some societies can be and I wondered, if there were more therapists of the same background available would the therapeutic services be more readily accessed by these communities? The dearth of male therapists during my training led me to think would men be more ready to seek out counselling if there were more male therapists? People want to speak to people who are like them and understand their world; just look at the creatives I gave advice to earlier in my career – the relief on their faces when they realised I understood their world was palpable so could the same be said of other communities, black musicians for instance?

Of course, our training encourages you to be colour blind (is that even possible? Why can’t we also be celebratory with difference?). However, the same can’t be said the other way around; sometimes barriers come from the client. If those barriers weren’t there imagine what wonderful work could be done. But how to access a forgotten demographic?

Forward thinking funding initiatives are so thin on the ground so I was very excited when BAPAM brought me on board to help steer theirs. I had a lived experience of not only being an industry professional but had also a wealth of knowledge of the training routes and the possible hurdles too. How exciting. This much-needed bursary aims not only to help with inclusion, something that’s sorely needed on many levels, but also to help break down clearly existing barriers to career progression for practitioners working in the UK music industry. Clients need the safety of a seen cultural reference to be in place before they can begin to address their mental health issues with their therapist. With this bursary, BAPAM, PPL and Help Musicians aim to help tackle this low visibility of Black, Asian and minority ethnic professionals in the field.

I welcome and applaud this step towards visibility. I get it.

Beverley Hills, November 2020

Bursaries Supporting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Music Professionals Training as Counsellors and Psychotherapists

Also by Beverley Hills: Creative Minds and Mental Health

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Although we miss the opportunity to gather in person at our Performing Arts Medicine Training Days, our new series of focused online CPD sessions benefits our community by enabling wider access to a flexible ongoing programme.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a hugely disruptive impact on everyone who works or studies in the performing arts, and we held our first session in October exploring perspectives on the health of performance professionals during lockdown. It was chaired by Dr Hara Trouli, Musculoskeletal Doctor and Course Lead for UCL’s ground-breaking Performing Arts Medicine MSc.

BAPAM CEO, Claire Cordeaux, spoke of our experience of patients’ struggles with loss of work and worries about sustaining their career, impacts on creativity and identity, and feelings of demotivation. Our case mix changed – fewer work-related musculoskeletal problems, and a considerable increase in people presenting with mental health problems (up from 15% to 26% of total cases). Of these, around a third of people presented with moderate to severe mental health problems (previously 12%). We’ve also seen an increase in the proportion of performance professionals contacting us with other kinds of complex ongoing health needs, some of whom have been unable to access NHS services temporarily closed due to the pandemic. In vocal health care, we provided an interim service providing advice from Ģ��tv Vocal Rehabilitation Coaches while patients waited for diagnostic assessments at temporarily closed Voice Clinics.

We were determined to adapt our clinical and health education services to support patients and the wider performing arts community through lockdown. We switched to remote consultations (our next CPD session takes a deep dive into the pros and cons of remote performing arts medicine) and introduced a new online peer support initiative in the form of our Community Drop-in Sessions. BAPAM GP, Dr Pippa Wheble, gave the next talk on these peer support sessions, which she facilitated weekly, with guest experts covering topics such as mental skills training, motivation and self-care, as well as a session sharing Pippa’s own expertise in breathing techniques. Participants valued connecting with peers and the opportunity to shift perspective from career stress to a focus on healthy creative practice skills for lockdown and beyond. The sessions are good reminders of my ‘worth’ and ‘value’ and give practical tips in improving a creative life.

Dr Finola Ryan, Specialist Registrar in Occupational Medicine and Honorary Performing Arts Medicine Lecturer at UCL, spoke about the BAPAM risk assessment guidance for freelance musicians as they return to work during the pandemic.

We were honoured to welcome Lucinda Halstead M.D., Otolaryngologist and President of the (PAMA) in America, to close the session. It was fascinating to hear about the measures she had taken in order to carry on working safely in her voice clinic during the pandemic, and the findings of recent research into aerosol spray and COVID-19 transmission for specific instruments. She explained how she had learned from this to increase safety in her own clinical practice.

We thoroughly enjoyed the wider discussion that followed each presentation and it was great to get our CPD programme underway. Sessions continue on the last Wednesday of every month (except December) from 19:00 GMT. We explore key topics in current performing arts medicine practice and share unique insights into performance health and wellbeing. The approach is multidisciplinary: physiological and psychological care, preventing as well as treating problems, supporting healthy and sustainable creative practice.

Find out more about future sessions and book your place here

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