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COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
Training and Mentorship for community groups and organizations
Bringing People Together Through Song
Songbirds partners with health, community and professional organizations to create participatory singing experiences adapted to your specific context. We develop programs, workshops and professional learning experiences for communities, care teams, workplaces and organizations — from a single gathering to longer-term community initiatives.
Start a conversation →Why Community Singing for your workplace?
A naturally low-barrier practice
Community singing is not about preparing for a performance or learning to sing “correctly.” Songs are taught through call and response, and are learned together in the moment. We sing as a group to feel good, rather than sing for any external value or assessment. Because of this, community singing removes many of the barriers that can make other forms of music-making feel inaccessible.
People can participate without reading music, knowing the songs, speaking fluent English, identifying themselves as singers, or needing a particular level of physical ability.
Participation can take different forms — singing, humming, listening, moving, or simply being present with the group.
This flexibility allows community singing to work across differences in age, language, confidence, musical experience and ability, and in a wide range of community settings.
The goal is not perfection. It is to feel good singing, and to feel connected both to ourselves and others.
How We Work
Community Health & Social Prescribing
We work with health, settlement and community organizations to explore how community singing can support social connection, participation, mental wellbeing and belonging.
Our approach is responsive to the context: we want to understand who the program is for, what barriers to participation may exist, and what will make the experience meaningful in your particular setting.
Partnerships might include:
- pilot or ongoing community singing programs
- social-prescribing initiatives
- consultation and co-design
- community engagement
- programming adapted for a particular population or setting
- dreaming up something different together
Professional Learning & Organizational Wellbeing
We bring community singing into professional development days, conferences, retreats and staff gatherings.
These sessions offer a different way for people to connect — through voice, rhythm, listening and shared experience rather than more talking, presenting or problem-solving.
Sessions can stand alone or be woven into longer experiences that incorporate reflection, movement and accessible creative practice.
Wellbeing Workshops & Retreats
We create half-day, full-day and multi-day experiences that offer people time to slow down, reconnect and explore wellbeing through song and accessible creative practice.
Community singing remains at the centre, with movement, writing, art-making, reflection and other expressive practices woven in, if and where they support the group and the purpose of the gathering.
These experiences can be created for community groups, helping professionals, caregivers, educators or other groups looking for a more immersive form of connection and renewal.
Everything is invitational. No musical or artistic experience is required, and there is nothing to perform or get right.
Selected Projects & Partnerships
Singing Together
Singing Together was a sustained community singing initiative supporting newcomer mental health, social connection and belonging.
The program used songs taught in the oral tradition, along with rhythm, movement, simple harmony and opportunities for cultural sharing.
Its structure allowed people to participate across differences in English fluency, literacy, musical experience and confidence.
Participant evaluation found strong experiences of connection and belonging, along with reports of reduced stress and loneliness, increased confidence, opportunities to practise English and meaningful relationships across cultures.
“It helps me feel less alone and forget about some of that hardship. I feel free from any worries. I feel happy all day; even if you’re sick, it makes you happy.”
— Singing Together participant
Access Alliance Health Promoter Christen Kong also observed participants gradually taking ownership of the space — requesting songs, bringing movement and memory into the circle, building friendships across cultures, and using singing as a joyful entry point into conversations about mental health and accessing support.
“It feels like we are giving each other gifts and receiving gifts. We are sharing our culture and everything.”
— Singing Together participant
In partnership with Access Alliance
Funded by Ontario Arts Council
Community Singing & Creative Practice
Kate and Rieko developed and facilitated a series of participatory singing and creative experiences in Nelson, BC, for early-years professionals, families and Kootenay Kids Society staff.
The work included:
- community singing with families
- an all-staff session centred on connection and wellbeing
- a full-day educator workshop exploring self-care, playfulness, creativity and collective care
The workshops used community singing alongside accessible expressive-arts practices to create opportunities for people to slow down, reconnect and experience one another differently.
“It was an accessible way for everyone to participate in something different together. In our feedback for the day, it was by far the most highly rated part of the day.”
Grief, Loss & End-of-Life
Kate and Jordan have developed participatory singing experiences for people working and living close to grief, caregiving and end-of-life.
At Dying.dialogue 2026 at OCAD University, they led A Participatory Workshop in Song for End-of-Life and Grief.
They also developed a workshop for the Hospice and Palliative Care Ontario annual conference, where hospice and palliative-care clinicians, interdisciplinary teams, volunteers and caregivers, explored communal singing as a resource for connection, resilience and collective care.
The work is intentionally designed so grief can be present without requiring people to explain it, interpret it or disclose personal experiences. Simple songs, repetition and collective participation allow each person to find their own way into the experience.
Community Singing for Health & Social Prescribing
Kate led Community Singing for Connection and Wellbeing at an Alliance for Healthier Communities learning event, introducing community-health professionals to community singing as an accessible, participatory practice with applications in wellbeing, social connection and social prescribing.
The session combined a brief introduction to the emerging evidence with direct participation, allowing attendees to experience the practice rather than only hear about it.
Skilled Facilitation Matters
Community singing can look beautifully simple: a circle of people, a short song, voices gradually finding one another.
Creating the conditions for that simplicity takes skill.
Thoughtful facilitation includes:
- choosing repertoire that is accessible and appropriate for the context
- teaching songs clearly without relying on written music
- pacing a group and reading the room
- offering multiple ways to participate
- attending to culture, language and power
- supporting emotional and relational safety
- creating enough structure for people to feel secure without controlling the experience
- adapting the work to the people present rather than expecting them to fit a predetermined musical model
The Singing Together report specifically recommends prioritizing skilled, culturally responsive arts facilitators who can create welcoming and inclusive spaces.
Hear Songbirds on CBC
Listen to the feature →Evidence Behind the Work
Our practice is informed by research on group singing, arts and health, social connection, stress regulation, newcomer wellbeing, social prescribing, grief, caregiving and community care.
We are developing a dedicated Research & Evidence resource bringing together studies, reports and practice-based learning that inform this work.
Explore Research & Evidence →Songbirds
Kate Keenan
Songbirds
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) · Community Song Leader · Expressive Arts Therapist · Community Health & Wellbeing Facilitator
Kate is a Toronto-based community songleader, Expressive Arts Therapist, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and multidisciplinary artist whose work brings together singing, creativity, community-building and wellbeing.
She develops and facilitates participatory singing experiences in community, health and professional settings, with particular interests in social prescribing, low-barrier creative participation and the role of collective arts practices in building connection and belonging.
Her work has included newcomer mental-health programming, professional learning, organizational wellbeing, grief and end-of-life contexts, community workshops and arts-based health initiatives.
With a background spanning songwriting, performance, theatre, children’s arts and psychotherapy, Kate is especially interested in creating opportunities for people to move from being audiences or consumers of culture to active participants in making something together.
Jordan Topp
Songbirds
Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist · Community Song Leader · Group Facilitator· Grief Worker
Jordan is a Registered Social Worker, psychotherapist, songleader and group facilitator, with nearly three decades of experience facilitating groups.
Her work focuses particularly on grief, loss, illness, life transitions, and collective care. Jordan runs weekly and monthly community singing groups, with a particular focus on singing for wellbeing and singing to support grief.
Jordan’s practice draws on extensive training in mindfulness meditation, grief support and ritual, somatic regulation, contemplative psychotherapy and group facilitation.
She brings particular depth to work that asks how people can meet grief, change and uncertainty in community rather than in isolation.
Key Collaborators
Rieko Asaba
Held in Song
Rieko Asaba is a Toronto-based community song leader, Expressive Arts Therapist, and Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). She brings a deep appreciation for the arts and their capacity to create connection, expression, belonging, and community.
Rieko completed her community singing leader training with Mila Redwood and facilitates singing circles and workshops for helpers, caregivers, newcomers, families, and community groups. She is the founder of Held in Song, a community singing circle for helpers and caregivers, created from her own experience of working in caring professions and her belief in the importance of spaces where those who care for others can also come together, be supported, and tend to themselves.
Rieko co-designed and co-facilitated Singing Together at Access Alliance, an arts-based community singing program supporting newcomers through social prescribing. She has also co-designed and co-facilitated community singing workshops with Kootenay Kids Society in Nelson, BC, bringing families together through song, leading an all-staff workshop focused on connection and self-care, and offering an all-day workshop for educators exploring self and community care. She has also supported Mila Redwood in facilitating her community singing work, including the Song of the Sea: A Women’s Singing Journey retreat in Donegal, Ireland. Her work also includes co-facilitating arts-based workshops for healthcare and community professionals, including an expressive arts therapy workshop at the Ontario Nurses Association Leadership Mental Health Summit.
Music has been part of Rieko’s life for as long as she can remember. She began playing piano at the age of three and grew up singing with family and friends. After moving to Canada, she found herself gradually losing touch with her voice and with the sense of connection and belonging that music had once offered her. Community singing became a way of finding her way back to her voice. Through singing with others, she rediscovered not only the joy of singing, but also a deeper sense of connection, belonging, and being part of a community.
Rieko believes that singing does not need to be about performance or perfection. When we sing together, our individual voices become part of something shared, creating opportunities for connection, belonging, and community. She brings a culturally responsive lens to her work, shaped by her experience as an immigrant, and is passionate about creating welcoming spaces where people can come as they are and find connection through song.
Let’s Build Something Together
Community singing can begin very simply.
- A staff gathering.
- A professional-learning session.
- A pilot with one community.
- A workshop around a particular theme.
Sometimes that is enough.
Sometimes it becomes something longer: an ongoing program, a social-prescribing initiative, a residency or a deeper community partnership.
If you’re exploring how community singing could support the people you work with, we’d be glad to hear what you’re imagining.
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