The term ‘music therapy’ has been adopted in everyday language to describe listening to music to improve mood, forget about worries and enhance productivity through processing and letting go of emotions. However, music therapy in the context of care settings is an established psychological clinical intervention, delivered by music therapists to help people whose lives have been affected by injury, illness or disability through supporting their psychological, emotional, cognitive, physical, communicative and social needs.
There are a number of different ways that Hollybank Trust is offering support to residents through music therapy and live performances from local artists that strengthen our connections to the local community. Here, we tell you about three main ways that Hollybank is in tune with music therapy for our residents…
For some people who live at Hollybank, music is an intrinsic part of their daily routine, and they love nothing more than waking up and getting ready to their favourite song! The therapy team at Hollybank Trust work around the clock to deliver tailored music therapy sessions to our children, young people and adults, and our friends from Chiltern Music Therapy visit Hollybank Trust on a regular basis to develop our understanding of the benefits of music therapy for individuals.
With the right person-centred approach to music therapy sessions and workshops, each student with a different disability can breakthrough creative blocks and follow paths to never-before-explored areas of self-expression, creativity, and understanding that other teaching methods might miss. For example, some of the residents at Hollybank have always had a natural flair for writing poetry and songwriting and some of those people are not afraid of the spotlight! Music therapy sessions can help many of our residents to recognise and harness their own abilities. Just this year, many of our residents have followed their passion for singing in musical theatre by putting themselves forward to perform in the Hollybank Trust annual pantomime.
Chiltern Music Therapy is a charity that offers offers music therapy, neurologic music therapy and community music services for people of all ages and needs, and their team have delivered sessions at Hollybank on the following:
Mirroring in music therapy
Turn-taking with rhythmic support
Putting aside the instruments: Silence, breath and voice
When local band Sky Fallers, who got together through Aspire Community Benefit Society, told us that they could come into perform for us during our annual Celebration Day, it was music to our ears!
Sky Fallers were formed through Aspire Community Benefit Society, and they are a band with a difference. Playing rock, pop, folk and blues, the South Leeds band includes four adults with learning disabilities. The core band is a six-piece ensemble with four learning disabled adults and staff members from Aspire Community Benefit Society who act as musical facilitators and coordinators. Sky Fallers also offer participative music workshops with drum circles, singalongs and song requests.
For many local care homes and disability services, Sky Fallers are top of the list when it comes to booking entertainment for celebrations and events. Classic tunes from the 70s right through to the 90s during the Sky Fallers performance on Celebration Day, got many staff members and residents foot tapping, clapping, bopping and rocking out! Popular hits on the day included Hey Baby by Bruce Channel, One Love by Bob Marley, Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, Cest la Vie by Bewitched, and many more!
During the Sky Fallers performance on Celebration Day, the band members got the audience on board with their show by getting them to copy their energetic dance moves, which got some laughs from the audience too. This type of audience participation is a huge part of what makes inclusive for both band members and audience members with disabilities. During audience participation, the band can connect with people in the audience, and where instruments are taken out to people in the audience, professional musicians can teach music lovers the basics of playing music to a simple beat. For music fans amongst those with disabilities, having the opportunity to test out different instruments or learn how to move (and groove!) to different rhythms is a brilliant and memorable experience.
More and more bands are getting audience members with specific needs and disabilities engaged with playing an active role in their live performance, and more and more, people are feeling part of these performances.
Tony and Dave, the Ukulele Men, are on tour week-on-week with their Ukulele and singing duo!
As well as performing at our coffee mornings held in Treetops café at main site, this band of two are usually booked by our homes for their own events across the Trust. Tony and Dave are also part of other local music bands, such as the Wakeylele Band in Wakefield.
Each year, when festival season is in full swing, the homes across Hollybank Trust put on their sunshine-ready gear and head out to some of nearby festivals that showcase some of the best local talent.
There are many moments to be savoured through having these new experiences together, and listening to new music from new artists is exciting for our residents and helps to challenge and expand their creativity. One of our residents is always creating tunes on his keyboard and another one of our residents has found one of her favourite instruments in the form of her sensory rattle toys.
Hollybank Trust is always seeking new connections within the local area, which instils a sense of community spirit both within our homes across the Trust, and throughout the local area.
If you know of anyone who might like to perform at one of our Hollybank coffee mornings and one of our events, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!
We’re sure many of you have heard of and had first-hand experience of Makaton, but for those of you who may not have encountered it, Makaton is a communication tool designed to improve spoken language development. Makaton is used by 1 million people in the UK as a way to seamlessly integrate signs and symbols in order to improve communication, comprehension and attention and listening skills across various contexts. This ensures a personalised approach that caters to individual needs.
Using Makaton with singing is a fun and easy way to learn how to use signs. Signing and singing have been shown to encourage the development of communication and language skills and are beneficial for vocalisation, confidence, social skills, emotional development, well-being and self-esteem.
The SLT team host weekly Makaton Sing and Sign sessions where the team set up their own playlist of hits with lyrics that are easy to remember to sing along to. This session not only focuses on modelling and sharing Makaton signs with our residents, but also sharing those signs with staff who accompany residents to the session. This boosts people’s overall knowledge of Makaton, helping people spread awareness around the Trust of how learning signs can improve communication and enhance relationships between staff and residents. In addition, on Thursday afternoons at Hollybank, children sing popular songs and rhymes that they are familiar with and the SLT team introduce Makaton signs and symbols to both children and staff.
For a person with a disability, potential benefits of these singing and signing sessions may include the following:
Hollybank Trust is a registered Charity: 1043129
