Treloar’s celebrates #WorldMusicTherapyDay

Last Thursday was #WorldMusicTherapyDay. Here at Treloar’s we have had music therapists working with us for the past 20 years. Read more below on music therapy and how it is used with our students.

What is Music Therapy?
Music plays an important role in our everyday lives. It can be exciting or calming, joyful or poignant, can stir memories and powerfully resonate with our feelings, helping us to express them and to communicate with others. the British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT) describes the role of Music Therapists as “supporting the client’s communications with a bespoke combination of improvised or pre-composed instrumental music and voice, either sung or spoken”. Music Therapy can support a student’s communication and highlight their potential, helping them to make connections and support their wider relationships and interactions.

What is a Music Therapist?
“Music Therapists are highly trained ‘allied health professionals’ (AHPs), providing treatment that can help to transform people’s lives,” in the words of the BAMT website. “Music Therapists hold a Masters degree in Music Therapy and have a high level of musicianship and skill and must also be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council”

Music Therapy at Treloar’s
We have been lucky at Treloar’s to have had Music Therapists working with us for the past 20 years. Our current Music Therapist Christina Lydon has been with us a year and has come with experience in special education and in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Child Development settings. She sees children from our parent and pre-school group BELONG all the way through school and into college. She runs class groups and sees individuals as well as working jointly with other clinicians, including Speech and Language Therapists and Physiotherapists, as well as teachers, to achieve joint aims and outcomes.

Most importantly, as our 2017 keynote speaker, Professor Robert Winston, put it: “Music Therapy at Treloar’s offers students a space to realise their potential and be autonomous.”