The Mental Health & Wellbeing Toolkit Podcast is hosted by Dr Helen Jones, a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership. The content is based on doctorate research conducted by Dr Jones and adapted from a funded course that has been running for 3 years at the University of South Wales.

The podcast looks to draws together tools, strategies, techniques and information to provide people with something to use to protect them from hurt and maintain wellbeing. Creating a week by week breakdown, the podcast aims to provide some science, theory, or common sense ways to tackle issues of ordinary humans, dealing with their day to day.

ANTE collective are truly privileged to have been approached by such a worthwhile and considered project and was thrilled when Dr Jones and her team at Cortecs Cerebrol asked us to create for them music to be used on the podcast. Looking within our Collective, we decided that ANTE Partner, William Lai was a good fit for this task with experience in music production across multiple genres and having received critical praise for his work in Lilith most recently.

The task at hand revealed itself to be quite complex following workshops with the client. To create music for the complex subject matter of Mental Health required a high level of seriousness and consideration. As with most podcasts, music is the first thing you hear and first impressions are critical to the audience. Research into the existing landscape showed us a limit variety with some psychology podcasts even having no music.

William used a variety of workshopping techniques and interviews to better understand Dr Jones’s vision. After creating demos, we hosted a listening session, getting critical feedback throughout the creative process to make sure we’re all on the same page. We knew we wanted to thoughtfully balance the nature of the podcast with the personality of the host, and as the podcast looks to reframe existing, often considered serious or scary psychology topics and tools, the aim is to produce music that will speak to its audience in a welcoming and engaging tone.

Ultimately, this project was a resounding success, with Dr Jones pleased with our final deliverable. In her own words:

“The jingle is brilliant, thank you so much. It has been a great working with (ANTE Collective) and so impressed by your professionalism and talent.

I am sure that there will be opportunities to collaborate again in the future and I will confidently recommend you whenever possible.”