Live Music Now and the Care Quality Commission are challenging care homes throughout Britain to do something musical and extraordinary to celebrate the Last Night of the Proms.
During the first week of September 2018, please share a photograph or video of your home making music together – staff, residents, musicians, anyone!*
You could share it via your own social media using the hashtags #LiveMusicinCare #LastNightoftheProms and #CareAware or send it by email ([email protected]). You may also wish to adapt one of the six messages at the bottom of this page for your own social media. Download a complete campaign media pack here.
Here’s a great example sent in by MHA Bradbury Grange Residential Care Home in Whitstable during a session with LMN musician Maz O’Connor:
On Saturday 8 September 2018, the Last Night of the Proms, we will be sharing a video of the CQC’s Chief Inspector Andrea Sutcliffe singing with residents at a care home in London. Follow our Facebook and Twitter feeds to watch it first!
If you’d like to join in, but don’t know how to start, then keep reading for some great tips about making music together. It doesn’t need to be difficult or expensive. Later life should be a time of creativity and discovery. Music and the arts should be available to everyone, regardless of whether they are living independently or in residential care.
Tips for making music in care homes
We’ve seen many different and wonderful ways to bring music into care home life around the UK. Sessions could be led by professional musicians, but you will probably find there are some very capable musicians and singers in your care home already, amongst your staff and residents.
Here are some examples:
1. Many care homes take opportunities to make music informally throughout the day – such as care workers singing while dressing residents, songs before lunch, or CDs playing in corners where residents gather.
2. Musicians might come to your care home to perform, enabling residents to join in with the performances.
3. Musicians or volunteers get residents making music themselves. Some musicians might bring “buddies” – volunteers singers who sit among the residents sensitively helping them sing and get the most out of the activity.
4. Music therapists work intensively and clinically, often one-to-one with residents.
5. Karoake machines, sing-a-long CDs and similar are useful ways to enable non-musicians to lead the live experience.
Use a combination of these approaches, using music and singing throughout the day to help residents, motivate and cheer staff – making your home a much nicer place to be!
We’ve created a whole website of practical resources and tutorial videos, to inspire you to make music in your care home. Visit www.achoirineverycarehome.co.uk for more!
Messages
- For people living in care (even those with dementia), music participation can help make life more meaningful, vibrant and joyful. NAME OF CARE HOME is taking part in the CQC and Live Music Now’s #LastNightoftheProms #LiveMusicinCare challenge! #CareAware livemusicnow.org.uk
- Taking part in music can have a great impact on your social and emotional wellbeing, your interactions with people and your quality of life. NAME OF CARE HOME is taking part in the CQC and Live Music Now’s #LastNightoftheProms #LiveMusicinCare challenge! #CareAware livemusicnow.org.uk
- Shared music-making and communal singing help us create and maintain social bonds and can be especially important in group care settings. NAME OF CARE HOME is taking part in the CQC and Live Music Now’s #LastNightoftheProms #LiveMusicinCare challenge! #CareAware livemusicnow.org.uk
- Music can remain a way of communication when speech is lost through dementia. NAME OF CARE HOME is taking part in the CQC and Live Music Now’s #LastNightoftheProms #LiveMusicinCare challenge! #CareAware livemusicnow.org.uk
- Many care staff find that leading music activities, or just taking part, can improve their own job satisfaction and enjoyment. NAME OF CARE HOME is taking part in the CQC and Live Music Now’s #LastNightoftheProms #LiveMusicinCare challenge! #CareAware livemusicnow.org.uk
You may wish to substitute the handles @LiveMusicNowUK and @CareQualityComm for the names of those organisations, in your messages.
Live Music Now have staff and musicians throughout the UK who train and organise musicians to visit care homes and work with care home staff. Contact them to discuss a visit or make a donation to help their work: livemusicnow.org.uk
Thank you, and have fun!!
*Please ensure you have appropriate permissions from residents before filming and sharing.
