Early Years in Islington

Through our early years outreach projects, delivered in partnership with Bright Start, we work with particularly vulnerable and hard-to-reach families, supporting parents with children under 5 years old.

For the last two years, Bright Start Islington and the London Symphony Orchestra have run their ‘Tuning In’ programme in partnership.
Bright Start Islington is a council-run early intervention service, providing support to Islington families from conception to age 5, with the aim of giving every child the best start in life. Together with the LSO, we have been delivering responsive, small-scale participatory music workshops for over 7 years.

‘Tuning In’ is a parent wellbeing approach for parents of babies under 6 months, led by creative leader Natasha Zielazinski alongside musicians from the LSO. Families are referred to the programme through CAMHS, health visiting and family engagement workers, and parents often bring along partners or extended family.

The focus is on connection – between parents and babies, and between parents in the room. Sessions are led with an approach that emphasizes openness, togetherness and creativity, allowing parents to share experiences and express themselves through singing (with an international repertoire) and movement. A collective song-writing process supports participants to give voice to lived experience and self-expression.