E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Sutton, Julie; Beyond the Ordinairy
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The projects:
In Belfast a current two-year project has explored the use of music and
music therapy with children who have experienced psychological stress or
trauma. The Music Project involved a team of five registered music
therapists. The main focus of the project offered creative music making to
groups of children in a range of community settings. In particular, work in
conjunction with existing groups has been set up, for instance in community
centres, or collaborating with voluntary organisations such as NSPCC.
The aim of this work has been to come to an understanding of the ways in
which children living in areas where there is community violence use music
spontaneously. A further aspect to the project has focused on the clinical
setting, where a small number of children attended short-term 45 individual
music therapy. This work will be discussed in detail in this paper.
In Bosnia the WarChild organisation has been supporting ongoing musical
work that ranges from a broad-based therapeutic approach through to
clinical music therapy. A small number of music therapists have been invited
to observe and advise on this work, of which my visit during December 1996
was the first. The WarChild project in Bosnia has continued to develop and
the Music Therapy Wing in the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar is now
flourishing. To date five music therapists from the UK, Denmark and Ireland
have been directly involved in this work.
Acknowledgements:
I thank Jerry and his family for trusting me to tell his story and for agreeing
to the playing of the audio examples.
I am grateful for the support of WarChild London and Amsterdam and in
particular Nigel Osborne and Ian Ritchie, who offered me the opportunity to
45 After an initial meeting, weekly sessions are held. The children have attended 4-20
sessions, depending on a range of circumstances (for instance, one child whose family home
had been burned down eventually left N. Ireland and was therefore unable to continue
attending).
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