The Planetary Network
The planetary network of light, love and service is transforming the mental climate of the planet, reorientating humanity to spiritual attitudes and values. The groups and activities reported in the Bulletin reflect different aspects of the network.
The Music Therapy Charity
The Music Therapy Charity (MTC) was formed in 1969 to promote and support the activities of music therapists. Primarily, MTC funds music therapy research and bursaries for music therapists in training. It is the only funding body in the UK specifically supporting high quality research into what treatment outcomes can be expected with a course of music therapy.
MTC highlights the following benefits of music therapy:
• effective in reducing tension and anxiety, and challenging behaviour.
• increases self-awareness, the awareness of others, and the ability to manage feelings and stress.
• encourages and promotes the development of communication and social skills, self-expression, confidence and self-esteem.
• promotes well-being, helps pain management and physical rehabilitation.
• helps to meet the social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive needs of vulnerable people of all ages, contributing to the quality of life and enabling them to achieve their full potential.
401 Shakespeare Tower
Barbican, London,
EC2Y 8NJ, UK
w: www.musictherapy.org.uk
Jessie’s Fund
Jessie’s Fund (JF) was founded in 1995 by the parents of Jessica George, a gifted and musical 9-year old who passed away in 1994. Jessie’s parents established Jessie’s Fund, a registered UK charity, to help seriously ill and disabled children through the creative and therapeutic use of music.
JF explains: “Music therapy uses music to encourage communication and expression by playing an instrument, singing or listening, usually in improvised music. It isn’t about learning to play an instrument; the instruments offered can all be played intuitively.”
The Fund works in children’s hospices. It has now equipped all children’s hospices with musical instruments and has established part-time music therapy posts at 37 of the 46 hospices for children in the UK. It also provides workshops and training courses for hospice staff which enable them to use music as a tool for communication and expression with the children for whom they care, some 85% of whom can’t communicate verbally.
Jessie’s Fund also supports children in settings other than hospices and schools by funding music therapy sessions, providing instruments, giving in-house workshops, and running creative music projects.
15 Priory Street, York, Y01 6ET, UK
t: (+44) 01904 658 189
w: www.jessiesfund.org.uk/