There are many challenges facilitating music therapy sessions in school settings, including the stigma around mental health support, parents’ willingness to send their child to therapy, schools having to cover a massive curriculum, space availability, and teacher attitudes all come into play. Holistic education should include therapeutic support and it should no longer be considered a privilege since it is a right.
Children in school, beyond learning some musical techniques, should be given opportunities to avail therapeutic support to express, explore, and to use the space outside of the classroom to rejuvenate from engaging in stressful academia.
There are many challenges facilitating music therapy sessions in school settings, including the stigma around mental health support, parents’ willingness to send their child to therapy, schools having to cover a massive curriculum, space availability, and teacher attitudes all come into play. Holistic education should include therapeutic support and it should no longer be considered a privilege since it is a right. Children in school, despite teaching them skills and techniques, should be given opportunities to avail therapeutic support to express, explore, and to use the space outside of the classroom to rejuvenate from engaging in stressful academia. According to recent reports in Sri Lanka (2024/2025), 60% of school children were reported to have constant depression (https://island.lk/60-percent-of-lankan-schoolkids-affected-by-depression/), 9.6% with suicide ideation, and students also reported other mental health difficulties such as anxiety, sleep deprivation, loneliness, and social isolation. The reasons for these unfortunate numbers were explained within the lines of academic stress, bullying, and household issues (https://lankanewsweb.net/archives/106866/concerns-mount-over-mental-wellbeing-of-sri-lankan-youth-as-distress-indicators-rise/). School students reporting social isolation and loneliness is quite distressing given that the school setting can be an oasis of social interaction, social connectedness, and positive social experiences. Therefore, the arts, aesthetics, sports, and therapeutic support should be integrated and promoted more in school settings.
Supporting the mental health of children is becoming a burgeoning need and schools are ideal settings to begin with. Sri Lanka not having many functioning youth hubs, therapy centers, and mental wellbeing and support centers which are accessible to all despite social and economic status makes mental health issues much harder to navigate (can we break this sentence up to be simpler?). The system in which multidisciplinary teams comprising of therapists, social workers, counsellors, psychologists, and where necessary medical officers function together is scarcely seen in the country.
While bringing awareness to mental health supports and emphasizing the importance of mental health, schools can help break stigmas that are tied with mental health supports. Making the concept of therapy as an intervention that supports and not as an intervention which ridicules those availing it, being aware of peers needing emotional and behavioural support, building empathy and resilience, understanding the diversity of ability within the classroom, learning important social skills in a context where inclusive education is becoming can help start the change in the field of mental health for the better. Therefore, schools can be one of the most valuable organizations to start the music therapy initiative.
My experience in the field of education runs back a decade. When I started facilitating music sessions, the lack of opportunity for the children in Sri Lanka was one of the most disheartening things to experience. Simple things such as musical toys, sensory equipment for children with special needs, musical instruments such as ocean drums, chimes were considered exotic.
Providing opportunities for children, giving them a platform for expression, or simply giving them a chance to learn a new song, - every a new musical activity did wonders and was worth gold. Stepping away from the traditional ‘keep the students calm and quiet in school, don’t sing too loud, play the instruments softly’ makes an unpopular impression on some instances. However, holding the therapy space, making aware that the humanistic perspectives, client preferences, and self-expression trump all -bar safety issues of course-, and updating the system to bring the best of care for the children should be highlighted.
Therefore, the efforts made to improve the quality of life of school children, particularly children with special needs who have limited support in schools will hopefully flower into a much larger initiative.
