News and blogs
Resonate Create Glasgow Resonate Create is a community music project using Indonesian gamelan instruments for individuals with disabilities, based at Common Wheel, Campbell House in Gartnavel Royal Hospital, Glasgow. Sessions are free to participate – though donations are welcome.…
Attention all Good Vibrations participants and Gamelan Room users! To celebrate the launch of our new digital Gamelan Room we are inviting you to contribute to a collaborative composition. We’d love you to write a short piece of music…
Resonate Sheffield is back! Resonate is a community music project using Indonesian gamelan instruments, based at Highfield Trinity Church. Sessions are free to participate – though donations are welcome. No musical experience is needed. Sessions run Wednesdays from 10:30AM-12:30PM,…
Fay, an occupational therapist, and Kieran, a Loophole Music facilitator, talk about one of our secure hospital projects and the impact it has had on one particular service user. Fay: Dean has been in hospital for over ten years.…
January 2022 Author and artist Ruinbow writes for Good Vibrations about their experience of leaving prison during the pandemic. People imagine that being released from prison would be a euphoric moment, but it is actually really stressful. Counterintuitively,…
November 2021 Author: Benjamin Yacoub, Talent Manager at Twisted Passion Ent Entering prison with a lengthy sentence to some is the end of the world. Although many give up and get involved with the drug culture to escape the…
Author and artist Ruinbow writes for Good Vibrations about how he got into art while in prison, his experience of being an art mentor, and his drive to make art accessible for all. I did not take to…
No. 12 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Akin spent the last two years of his criminal sentence in a ‘foreign national’ prison. He moved to the UK from Nigeria as a…
On 11 April, Linda Yates, Margaret Smith and Heather Strohschein presented The wheelchair is invisible – a conversation about accessibility and inclusivity in the time of Covid at MACSEM 2021, a conference organised by the Mid-Atlantic Chapter for the…
No. 11 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Bruce Houlder, CB QC and Founder of Fighting Knife Crime London It is Everyone’s Responsibility to help a Lost Generation of Young…
No. 10 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Laura Caulfield, researcher in forensic psychology and criminal justice This year marks my twentieth year working as a researcher in forensic psychology…
No. 9 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: BL, resident at HMP Stoke Heath. During the pandemic, we sent creativity packs to prisoners to use in their cells while they were…
On the evening of 21st May, Good Vibrations hosted the film premiere of Beyond Performance, within an intimate, online event attended by the artists who created it, plus an invited audience. The film combines an eclectic mix of shadow…
No. 8 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Russ Haynes, radio show host and Good Vibrations past participant I often wonder what the purpose of putting someone in prison is.…
No. 7 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Alison Frater, Co-Chair of Clean Break How do we halt the vicious cycle of crime? On the face of it a question…
No. 6 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Chris Atkins, filmmaker, journalist and author Most ex-jailbirds want to quickly forget their time behind bars, but I didn’t have that option.…
‘Hozho is not something you can experience on your own, the eagles tell us as they lock talons in the stratosphere and fall to the earth as one. Hozho is interbeauty.’ Lyla June Johnston – Hozho As a…
No. 5 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Charlotte Wise, Occupational Therapist based at HMP Stoke Heath The role of an occupational therapist can vary depending on the area of…
No. 4 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Sarah Hartley, Operational Lead for Creative Arts and Enrichment at Novus. Novus delivers education, rehabilitation support and opportunity to 60,000 adults and young…
No. 2 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Sara Lee, Artistic Director, Irene Taylor Trust “The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a…
No. 1 in our blog series exploring creative approaches to transforming the criminal justice system. Author: Dave Jeal, Chaplain Can you tell us about your time working as a prison chaplain? I’ve been a chaplain for over 22…
Guest Author: Anu Koechli As human beings one of the most fascinating elements of our species is our creative capabilities with the creation and development of music over tens of thousands of years. Recent technological developments over the last few…
Some thoughts about working for Good Vibrations as a facilitator – Laurence Rugg “Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.” John Ruskin (1819 – 1900 art critic…
Guest author: Elma Chapman Having experienced 13 episodes of detainment in hospital, I cannot ignore that ‘Mental’ Health is an important part of my Life Journey, but it does not identify who I am. It made me reflect on…
Author: Good Vibrations This beautiful comic was created by Studio Lindsay (@Studio.Lindsay) for The New Issue magazine in 2020. It was based on a Big Issue North article by Deborah Mulhearn about her visit to a Good Vibrations family…
Guest author: Elma Chapman Fear is our bodies’ language and yet so often we want to shut it up! It is an emotion within ourselves. An emotion in itself is not harmful, therefore why do people so dislike feeling…
One of Good Vibrations’ patrons, talented musician and comedian, Bill Bailey, gave members of our Glasgow Resonate group an exclusive interview earlier this year. The experience gave them an insight into how he handles nerves when performing, why he…
We’re delighted to launch a short film about Exploring Performance – a fantastic idea conceived by our Glasgow Resonate group. You can watch it here. On this project, group members interviewed and improvised with famous world music artists, Bill…
Loophole Music is a communal music making project at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in South London supporting patients’ wellbeing and recovery. The Maudsley Charity are generously supporting this project over three years, with funding coming from The National Foundation for…
On 16 December 2019, Big Issue North ran an article on our work with men at HMP Liverpool and their families. Deborah Mulhearn’s article brilliantly evokes the sounds and emotions of these projects: “The prison chapel at HM Prison…
We are delighted to announce that an in-depth article about Good Vibrations has been published in a special edition of the Prison Service Journal which looks at the impact of the Arts in Prison. Entitled “Music, Education and Opportunity”,…
In autumn 2017, we ran the 2017 Bill Bailey Fundraising Award competition. The aim was for entrants to come up with creative ways to raise money for Good Vibrations, and winners received lots of Bill Bailey goodies – tour…
Good Vibrations is actively seeking to partner with more Jobcentre Plus branches, across the country, to support their long-term unemployed clients with disabilities and chronic health conditions to become more work-ready. Over the last two years, we have supported 36…
Looking for something completely different for your next work team-building day? Why not book Good Vibrations to run a gamelan workshop with your team? Watch this short film to get a taste of what it’s all about. “I’ve learned so much about…
In 2015, a UK sex offender treatment prison collaborated with Nottingham Trent University to investigated the influence of gamelan courses with convicted sexual offenders, to ascertain if there were changes in participants in relation to readiness to change or…
Bath Spa University and The University of Worcester carried out peer-reviewed research into the impact of Good Vibrations’ gamelan projects on the older offender population. Research findings included that: The project helps older offenders to find an identity Completing…
Good Vibrations is proud to be a best-practice case study in The National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance’s new guide for those with responsibility for supporting the education, health, wellbeing and reintegration into society of individuals within the Criminal Justice…
A 2016 article about Good Vibrations’ impact in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation says: “Perhaps most interesting is the finding that the initial positive changes observed in some individuals seem to prompt continued positive change. Indeed, those men whom we were…
Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire District Job-centre Plus piloted an extraordinary programme this October with 20 long-term unemployed clients, 78% of whom considered themselves to have a disability or health condition. The group learnt to play an Indonesian tuned-percussion orchestra…
On 9th February we supported 15 teachers at a Barnet primary school to develop their creativity, leadership, communication, problem-solving and team-working skills through a Good Vibrations at Work Team-Building Day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYFjnZ8yHnY The feedback we got from participants about the…
Gerard Lemos, a highly respected author, prison policy expert and Co-Director of social policy thinktank Lemos & Crane, has a new book out, The Good Prison. In it he argues that conscience, formed by family relationships and reinforced through…
There’s an article about Good Vibrations in the latest edition of Music Education Research. It pulls together findings from longitudinal studies of Good Vibrations participants over the last few years, showing that participating in Good Vibrations inspires positive change…
October 2010: There’s an article by Laura Caulfield and Professor David Wilson from Birmingham City University in the current Journal of Social Criminology about the impact of Good VIbrations on women prisoners. Having interviewed women prisoners and prison staff…
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