Music Therapy
Rosies Rainbow Fund has a team of music therapists working at The John Radcliffe Children's Hospital in Oxford, Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, and the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. Our music therapists conduct group and individual music sessions with children and young people, transporting them away from the fear and boredom of hospital stays and procedures.
Sessions take place either in playrooms off the wards at all our hospitals, in our designated Rosie’s Rainbow Therapy Room at Oxford, or at the child’s bedside. In special circumstances, we also carry out work on intensive care wards if appropriate.
Our sessions can be one-to-one or in small but inclusive groups. Music therapy is driven by the interests and needs of the children.
Rosies Rainbow music therapy involves live, interactive, and developmentally appropriate music-making with the child (and sometimes family) aimed at facilitating expression of feelings, reducing distress and promoting well-being.
Lullabies often help infants to sleep, or they comfort children who are not feeling well enough to participate more actively. Playing and/or singing together is useful in distracting the young children during certain medical procedures.
For older children and teenagers, the service keeps pace with the rapidly evolving way that music is developed and listened to across a range of devices. As part of this work, we encourage and support the writing and recording of music with seriously ill teenagers and use iPads and tablet devices to encourage creativity.
Back to ‘Our Work’