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Image shown: Grainne Hope © John Quirke Photography.
Meath County Council Arts Office in partnership with Kids’ Classics is implementing a ‘Training Notes’ programme for musicians in Meath interested in working in healthcare settings. The Training Notes programme runs from November 2015 – November 2016.
Kids’ Classics is a non-profit organisation that designs, manages and delivers professional music projects and programmes in healthcare, educational and community settings around Ireland. It has recently expanded its scope to include ‘Training Notes’, a resource that offers training and mentoring to musicians and healthcare professionals.
Following from a very successful Music in a Healthcare Setting seminar held in partnership with Kids’ Classics, the Arts Service of Louth County Council (Create Louth) and Dundalk Institute of Technology, the need for further expansion and development in this area was established. The ‘Training Notes’ initiative in Meath is a continuation of the Music in Healthcare programme that has been running since that time. Its development ties to the Council’s stated policy of ‘recognising the importance of the arts in the areas of personal development, community development, employment and tourism and shall endeavour to create opportunities in each of these areas’.
‘Training Notes’ will be delivered by qualified trainers with wide-ranging practice and experience of working in hospital settings in Ireland, the U.K. and Europe. Gráinne Hope and Liam Merriman completed extensive training on the exclusive ‘Train the Trainers’ pan-European project. This was lead by Musique et Sante (France) in association with Music Network (Ireland), Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and the Royal Northern College of Music (UK). The project was supported by the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme.
Both Gráinne and Liam have delivered music in many settings including paediatric ICU, neonatal special care, oncology, palliative care, renal dialysis, burns, acquired brain injury, coma, Alzheimer’s and dementia, acute and chronic psychiatry, geriatric, surgical and cardiac.
The objectives of the ‘Training Notes’ programme are to understand the roles of a musician and the appropriate placement of music in healthcare settings and to explore the skill set and best practice methods necessary to deliver quality interactions in Hospitals and Nursing Homes. The programme includes issues such as the approach and methods required for successful musical interactions in hospital and care home environments, vocal and instrumental repertoire and improvisation, challenge of effective teamwork within a clinical space, ethics and confidentiality, and practical music placements in local healthcare settings.
