Alexia is travelling to Edinburgh to attend the European Music Therapy Conference, where she is looking forward to meeting old friends and new colleagues in the music therapy profession.  She’s looking to learn from how others are currently using music therapy with very young children, with people living with dementia (particularly considering how we look at music through a multi-cultural lens in the UK), and to meet music therapists sharing their skills with caregivers in different settings. 

If you’re attending the conference please come and say hello, use the conference App to connect with Alexia or join the presentation “Exploring the discomfort and potential when skill-sharing is truly reciprocal”, where she will be joined by Advisory Panel members Nina Cherla and Hazel Child [Thursday 9th June, 12.00-12.30, Rm3091].

 “Exploring the discomfort and potential when skill-sharing is truly reciprocal” sees Alexia and Music Therapists Nina Cherla and Hazel Child sharing their experiences of working together on two recent Music as Therapy International projects:  One responding to request for music training for caregivers of people living with dementia in India (Music Helps) and one responding to a request from the Carers Trust, supporting unpaid carers across the UK.

In both instances when we really explored what the project partners wanted we discovered it wasn’t something we had provided before.  The consequent diverse projects led Hazel and Nina way out of their comfort zones and led us all to reconsidering our more traditional project models to extend our portfolio of activities in new directions.