In Their Words: Children’s Perspectives on an El Sistema Music Program’s Effects on their Well-Being

Background: The El Sistema movement uses music as a promising tool to promote healthy childhood development and well-being, particularly in children facing socioeconomic challenges. Recognizing the need to better support underprivileged children in their neighborhood, the community-based organization Share the Warmth (STW) created an El Sistema-inspired music program named STW El Sistema. Owing to their program’s recent rise in popularity and corresponding costs, STW El Sistema coordinators partnered with McGill University researchers to formally evaluate and better understand the program’s effects on participating children. We sought to understand participating children’s lived experiences in STW El Sistema, and their perspectives on the program’s impact in their lives and on their well-being.

Methods: Community-based participatory research (CBPR), where STW partners were actively involved in the identification of the research question and in the interpretation and dissemination of research findings. This qualitative descriptive study included eight children aged 7–12 years stratified by age into two semistructured focus groups for thematic analysis.

Results: Children described STW El Sistema as associated with their well-being: 1) emotionally, by learning to cope with stress, and learning patience and confidence; 2) socially, by fostering a sense of community and relationships with peers and family; and 3) personally and educationally, by promoting scholarly motivation and career ambition.

Conclusions: Children expressed that STW El Sistema music program improved aspects of their well-being. Study results warrant longitudinal studies to further assess El Sistema’s impact on quality-of-life indicators.