Southern Culture
Did You Know?
Carnival
The Isle Of Wight has 7 carnivals, a carnival officer and offers an NVQ in Carnival
Sidney de Haan Research Centre
The Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health is currently pursuing an exciting programme of development and research aimed at promoting the value of music and the arts for the wellbeing and health of individuals and communities. The Centre has its home in the vibrant Creative Quarter in Folkestone, Kent, and was established with the support of funding from the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust in late 2004, under the director of Stephen Clift (Professor of Health Education) and Grenville Hancox (Professor of Music), of Canterbury Christ Church University.
Centre Mission
The Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health is committed to researching the contribution of music and other participative arts activities in promoting the well-being and health of individuals and communities.
Singing is Good For You!
A central focus of the Centres work is on the value of singing for wellbeing and health, and two recent projects have explored this idea with young children and their families on the Isle of Wight, and with elderly people in singing groups across the South East.
See Music Start and Silver Song Club Project
Folkestone GP Dr Sarah Montgomery is a member of the Centres Advisory Group. Here she gives a personal account of how her interest in the role of music in health care began:
My interest in the beneficial impact of music on health began when I was a newly qualified junior doctor. At the time, part of my work involved caring for patients with advanced dementia in a long stay hospital where disoriented elderly people roamed the wards apparently unable to engage in any kind of normal social interaction. One day I watched the hospital chaplain lead a short service of Holy Communion. In place of the liturgy he used hymns. I was amazed by the transformation in the atmosphere of the ward the behaviour of my patients. People who could no longer recognise their own spouses sang the hymns they had known since childhood and calmly took communion. Their dignity and humanity was restored. Music achieved in an instant what drugs and dedicated nursing care could never do.
The Way Forward
Research is needed to provide good scientific evidence on the value of musical activities for wellbeing and health. But research alone is of little value if the evidence it produces is not used to help inform practice. For this reason, the Sidney De Haan Research Centre is working to build partnerships with health and social care agencies and service users in the South East to strengthen the role of music and arts in health and social care and health promotion. It also aims to be a key national player in contributing to the wider development of the field of Arts and Health research and practice through membership of national and regional networks, publications and educational activities.
For more information visit the Centres website:
www.canterbury.ac.uk/centres/sidney-de-haan-research/