For young people, music is a powerful platform for identity formation, mood management, and meaning-making. Research had shown that adolescents and young adults often turned to music in moments of stress – especially in their mediatized, platform-driven lives, where music played a constant, immersive role. Yet, this connection is not always beneficial: depending on the context, music can both support and hinder well-being. This project explored music’s role in supporting mental well-being and societal engagement among young people in Rotterdam. The insights gathered throughout the project culminated in a co-created, social-media-friendly audiovisual handbook – Music’s Mental Toolbox – offering practical guidance on music, well-being, and engagement. While rooted in the experiences of Rotterdam youth, its relevance extends to adolescents and young adults more broadly.

Project Goals and Process

The project:

1. Assessed how (especially underrepresented) adolescents and young adults in Rotterdam used music to navigate well-being and engagement.
2. Developed a set of best (technological) practices – Music’s Mental Toolbox – to support a healthy, music-informed transition into adulthood.

Three key goals structured the project:

• Empowering youth as co-creators by involving them in every phase, ensuring underrepresented voices were heard and integrated.
• Fostering public dialogue through a Music Talks event, which brought together youth, musicians, and professionals to discuss music, mental health, and social connection.
• Creating a lasting resource, the audiovisual handbook, published on muziekhelpt.nu and adapted into shareable formats for social media.

What We Did

1. Focus Groups
   Eight interactive focus groups (exceeding the original target) were conducted with 16–26-year-olds from diverse backgrounds in Rotterdam. Special effort went into including participants from marginalized communities. These sessions went beyond data collection – they became vibrant, co-creative spaces of shared learning and peer support.
2. Music Talks Event
   In collaboration with Popunie and Cult North, a Music Talks symposium on the 8^th of November 2024 in OASE brought together youth, musicians, and researchers to reflect on the focus group findings and shape the final best practices. The event served as both a culmination and a launch point for wider public discussion. Click here for the after movie.
3. Music’s Mental Toolbox
   The final output, Music’s Mental Toolbox, is an audiovisual handbook comprised of short, focused videos designed for YouTube and social media. It has been widely shared among schools, youth centers, and cultural institutions – a practical and youth-friendly resource to support mental well-being through music. The videos are available on muziekhelpt.nu and more will be added in the following year.

Youth Engagement

While recruiting young people was expected to be a challenge, the response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. This enthusiasm allowed the project to exceed participation goals and deepen its impact. The focus groups proved to be more than research tools – they became transformative, empowering spaces in their own right. A key challenge going forward is maintaining and expanding the project’s (digital) presence to reflect the richness of the youth-generated insights.

This has led to the development of a format for focus group conversations on music, which were conducted several times during the Erasmus University Student Well-Being Weeks. In addition, a best practices guide on how to conduct these group conversations is available as a permanent resource for youth workers, primary/secondary schools and anyone else interested, on muziekhelpt.nu.

Importantly, the project engaged with a topic – music and youth mental health – that has since become a spearhead within the Healthy Start initiative, as outlined in the recently published white paper A Healthy Start: Een Mentaal Gezonde Basis voor de Huidige Generatie Jongeren. Moreover, the outcomes of the project also flowed into a research report commissioned by the Municipality of Rotterdam: “Ik hoor haar: In gesprek met Rotterdamse jongeren over de rol van Nederlandse rap voor persoonlijk welzijn”, authored by Robbert Goverts, Julian Schaap and Willem de Koster. This report built on the project’s foundations to further explore the emotional and social significance of Dutch rap among Rotterdam youth and its findings are directly beneficial to Rotterdam youth.