Community Action Project Spotlight: Celebrate Music Therapy Awareness

March is National Music Therapy Month so we thought it would be fitting to highlight our amazing Community Action Project from 2014/2015 Hope-Collective: Listen Up Victoria!

Music Therapy is the skillful use of music and musical elements by an Accredited Music Therapist to promote, maintain, and restore mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Music has nonverbal, creative, structural, and emotional qualities. These are used in the therapeutic relationship to facilitate contact, interaction, self-awareness, learning, self-expression, communication, and personal development (adapted from CAMT press release).

There are many ways to celebrate and promote music therapy in your community and this CLDP group decided to highlight this practice through their community action project.

Hope-Collective: Listen Up Victoria!

The primary focus of this project was to generate awareness of the therapeutic benefits of music to connect individuals to their emotions, memories and a feeling of belonging. The team collaborated with music therapists and the Music Heals Foundation to promote these benefits and collected iPod devices through drop off sites throughout the Victoria community. The iPods were then distributed to various long term care facilities for the benefit of residents with various disabilities.

Visit Listen Up Victoria’s Facebook Page to learn more about this initiative and see how this team boosted awareness of music therapy through Listen Up Victoria Month.