Since Sound It Out commissioned a consultant to advise on the development of our Health work in 2006, we have worked towards developing our programme within this strand. In 2007, Sound It Out developed and delivered a new project called Dynamix in the Parkview Clinic, part of Birmingham Children’s Hospital, funded by Birmingham City Council’s Creative Future Award. The aim of Dynamix was to provide access to practical music making for children and young people experiencing mental health conditions. Due to the success of this pilot project and the support of the healthcare professionals, in 2008 we developed the Dynamix model and were successful in achieving 2 year funding from Youth Music to extend the project to also include Ward 3 of Birmingham Children’s Hospital. This will sustain our partnership with Birmingham Children’s Hospital to 2010, with additional health-related projects in the planning stages.
Also in 2008, Sound It Out established links and partnerships in Telford and contributed to the development of the Get Creative for Well Being project with Telford & Wrekin Council. We look forward to developing these partnerships in the future.
In addition, Sound It Out has established partnerships and developed the structure for a new training initiative bringing health staff and community musicians together for professional development. This course will enable us to work with musicians to develop their confidence in delivering within healthcare settings and also to work with healthcare staff to develop their confidence in working with and organising music provision. We hope to progress these discussions further over the next few months as funding is sought.
Our work with mental health service users, including some of whom are resident in secure hospital settings, continues to go from strength to strength and is covered within our Inclusion Strand summary.
Please read through our project information and get in touch if you would like further information