Final kirkwood phrc2011_community recovery

COMMUNITY RECOVERY: MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS, CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS, AND HEALTH REFORM
Sandra Kirkwood,
B.Occ.Thy, B.Music, M.Phil.
15 July, 2011
Music Health Australia

Community Recovery – Qld Floods

Role of Occupational Therapists
The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate successfully in the activities of everyday life.
This enhances longer term national capacity and self-reliance in disaster affected countries and beyond.

Role of Music Health Professionals
Can be any discipline appropriately qualified to:
Adapt to impairment of body structure and disease
Enhance functional ability to be able to participate in music activities
Optimise environments to support music health and well-being
Promote physical, social, and cultural access
Engage in product design and development
Research, plan and develop policy to maximise health and well-being in music/health industry

Aims of Action Research
Community recovery sing-a-long
Initiated through Music Health email group & professional networking with communities
From 31 January-30 June, 2011.
Aim for maximum social health impact for minimal input.
Record & share learnings

Research Questions
What capacity does community have for creating/singing songs to support recovery?
What is appropriate role for Music Health professionals in crisis with limited resources?
What occurred in this case study?
Who participated?
What did we learn?
How does this inform future practice/research?

Precedents – Literature Review
Fire Cycle by Bev McAlister, Victoria, Dandenong Ranges.
World Federation of Occupational Therapists Situational Analysis of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster (2004).

Methods
Invited community members & professionals in Brisbane, Toowoomba and Ipswich
To create verses about their own flood experience to the tune of "Click! Goes the Shears.“
Supported by occupational therapist/ ethnomusicologist.

Advertising

Participants: 8 Song Creators
Chair – Indigenous Corporation (B)
Life Line counsellor (B)
Counsellor in private practice (I)
Behaviour support teacher (I)
Occupational Therapist / Musician (I)
Teacher / Parent of child with LD (I)
Community volunteer – singer (I)
Student Nurse (T)

Location of song creators

Methods
Monitored through e-mail dialogue with volunteers
Collated descriptive feedback
Supportive counselling.
Facilitation & multi-media recording by volunteers.
Cost: Minimal-online support
Evaluation and reporting.

Performances initiated by community:
7 March
4 April
Leichhardt-One Mile Community Centre

Sing-a-long Participants
About 12 people participated in singing
Age range from 20's to 70's, with one child of about 10yrs;
Multicultural group, all members of Support Links;
A few members were affected by the flood, and others had supported people who had been affected by the floods;
Facilitated by Astrid Tholens
Video by Rod Taylor – consent limited.

Feedback from group facilitator
“I felt the singing of the song was enjoyed by all, but all were stressed about being filmed and the possibility of being shown on the internet;
took a while to practise the song, and work out the phrasing with the music,
some felt it was too long.”

Creative Process

Gantt Chart–timeline

Analysis of Lyrics – peoples perceptions

Critical reflection on practice
The process was a significant innovation toward reforming health care
Introduced a remote method of community-based rehabilitation service delivery.
Creative Community response – community has capacity to assist in recovery.
Limited professional capacity to assist community members.
Challenge: Integration with whole place-based response; inter-agency communication.
Time-limited response. Long term services.

Outcomes – benefits
A new way of supporting communities to self-manage their own social and emotional recovery after flood disaster.
Music Health professional can inspire community engagement and support the creative collaboration through remote email networking – to a limited degree.
Low cost CBR intervention that was carried out by volunteers in the absence of funding allocated to community music projects or research.

Outcome – Role of Music Health
Music Health professionals important role in:
Initiating, contributing, facilitating
Enabling the creative collaboration;
Being available for supportive counselling, ethics review - MOU
Mediating the creative process
Encouraging buoyancy, resilience and re-building of communities.
Supporting community transition

Recommendations
Responses need to be:
Effectively monitored/channelled to maximise effectiveness and safety
Supported by all levels of government
Implemented by well-informed professionals in community collaboration
Integrated with the broader place-based disaster response
Planned & evaluated during and after crisis
Critical reflection on practice is of value.
Evidence-based research vs action research
Role flexibility: enhances transition/relocation.

Further Recommendations
Analyse community cultural development - crisis
Critically review further case studies
Draft regional guidelines for response and communication involving arts/music professionals
Develop Action Plans – service integration
Budget for skill development and training to support Creative Communities and involvement of music health professionals
Consider frameworks for culturally engaged community music (Kirkwood, 2009 thesis).
Allow communities to self-organise response in their chosen time frame: “Call the tune”

Music Health Australiawww.musichealth.com.au kirkwood13@bigpond.com
CITATION FOR THIS PRESENTATION
Kirkwood S. (2011). Community recovery: musical inspirations, creative collaborations, and health reform. In: 2011 Primary Health Care Research Conference: Program & Abstracts. Primary Health Care Research and Information Service, Australia. www.phcris.org.au/conference/browse.php?id=7048

Final kirkwood phrc2011_community recovery

by Music Health Australia on Jul 15, 2011

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Final kirkwood phrc2011_community recovery — Presentation Transcript