Daniela Castro de Jong, Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra (Australia) & Georgia Pike-Rowney, Practitioner and researcher in the transdisciplinary space of music, community, education, health and wellbeing, Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University

Session Title
Doing music together as a shared occupation: a socio-altruistic music program as a collective occupation and a learning opportunity for occupational therapy students

Session Details
Music and singing are complex occupations, considering their known effects on health, occupational performance, collaboration, and socialisation for people of all ages and with all levels of abilities. This session will introduce the participants to the community-based Music Engagement Program, which aims to create opportunities for social interaction and wellbeing for all of those who are involved through sharing songs. The program is based in Canberra, Australia, and since 2014 has been a part of a local occupational therapy program to teach students about the nature of occupation. The students learn through engaging in community music sessions with residents in aged care facilities and local schools.

The collaboration has been recently published as a discussion paper:

Castro de Jong, D., Pike, G., West, S., Valerius, H., Kay, A., & Ellis, S. (2020). Shared music, shared occupation: Embedding music as a socio-altruistic collective- and co-occupation in occupational therapy education. Journal of Occupational Science, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14427591.2020…

For more and how to register for future seminars, see: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/occupation/