What Is A Music Facilitator?

This is a term that is used for musicians who work in the Kingston General Hospital - Mental Health and Addictions Unit. I joined this program in September of 2022. 

The goal is to provide live music as an alternative to the common methods of treatment and to that end, The Mental Health and Addiction Unit at Kington General Hospital created a music therapy program to gauge the results of having live music available to the patients of the ward. I am not a music therapist, but as the Facilitator, I engage with the patients to have a shared experience through music. The goal is to change the narrative of someone’s day through a common connection of music.

This program was so successful in this unit, that similar sessions were added to the Child and Adolescents Floor as well as the Detoxification Centre.

The results were so impressive that funding has been secured to develop a future study on the effects of live music using a variety of benchmarks that will lead to determining using music as a viable tool to treatment.