Music therapy at Bristol’s Children’s Hospital

MusicSpace provides a music therapy service to the children at Bristol’s Children’s Hospital. Our therapist works there with children of all ages from tiny babies to older teenagers on the long-stay wards three days per week. Here she describes some of her work.

‘Most of my work is with children who have learning disabilities or who are in hospital long-term and the sessions happen at their bedside. I visit the children with my guitar, recorders and a trolley full of percussion instruments. I encourage the children to express themselves freely through playing the musical instruments and singing supported by my own music.

Music therapy offers a valuable creative outlet for a wide range of feelings that the children may be experiencing whilst they are in hospital. It also provides an enjoyable diversion from all the invasive procedures and treatments. For children, who are critically ill on the Intensive Care Unit and who are constantly being monitored, it is possible to see how the music can have a relaxing effect resulting in a lower heart rate and blood pressure.‘

One parent described the sessions with his daughter as “the best anti-depressant she could have…(They are) the only time she can really let go of all her emotions, inhibitions and, may be, frustrations”...

This work is generously funded through Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal.