The bagatelle of human flourishing: Using realist evaluation to disentangle the multiple wellbeing benefits of participatory music activity

The benefits of music participation are seen across health, education and social care contexts, and can help different people with different needs in different ways. As the boundaries between these contexts increasingly overlap, the need for flexible and effective evaluation has never been greater. Integrated health and social care, combined with an increasing requirement to demonstrate value for money, points to a need for more refined measurement tools that can be adapted to multiple contexts. This article explores realist evaluation as a means for generating better evidence to support participatory music interventions. It is illustrated using an evaluation of music-based programmes designed to increase wellbeing for adults and children with mental health issues and/or a learning disability. We draw on this ‘proof of concept’ to propose that realist evaluation offers a suitably flexible approach for disentangling the range of causal mechanisms at work in wellbeing interventions and can strengthen and consolidate the evidence for arts-based interventions.