Caring with Music: Can Music Do More In Adult Care Settings? (FutureLearn)

Using techniques from specially trained Nordoff Robbins music therapists – combined with your own expertise – you’ll explore how to effectively use music with the people you support.
Learn how to use music in care homes and other settings
You’ll explore your own relationship with music before learning how, and why, this can be used as an effective tool in care settings.
Tuning into the people you support, you’ll identify how you can bring music into the daily life of people you care for, such as creating songs and using musical instruments.
You’ll also learn how to plan and facilitate music activity sessions as well as tips to improve the soundscape of your setting.
Understand how to apply concepts such as active listening in your work
The course will help you apply your learning in a practical way and identify all opportunities to use music to benefit your care setting.
Examining concepts such as individual musicality and active listening, you’ll learn how to use music flexibly to enhance your work and caring environment.
Learn from the specialists at Nordoff Robbins
You’ll learn from the experts at Nordoff Robbins, the UK’s largest music therapy charity, whose practice is informed by research.
The course gives you the opportunity to explore the work of a music therapist and develop skills in this field to help provide better care for the people you support.

Syllabus

Week 1: Everyone has a personal relationship with music
Week 2: 'Tuning in' to the people you support
Week 3: The joy of familiar songs
Week 4: Music as part of your daily care setting
Week 5: Using musical instruments
Week 6: Embedding music into your care setting

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Apply active music-making in the everyday life of your adult care setting.
• Identify your own existing relationship with music
• Describe the musical identity of someone you support
• Describe why music 'works' and is a valuable tool in adult care settings
• Apply musical thinking to different forms of communication
• Describe how the people you support present in musical terms
• Explore how to use your voice and movement to engage with people you support
• Demonstrate how familiar songs can be adapted to interact with people you support
• Explore the purpose of a new song for someone you support
• Explore how to create your own song based on a familiar tune and use it flexibly
• Describe ways in which music can be used to enhance and ease daily routines and difficult moments in care settings
• Describe the 'soundscape' within your setting and identify how musical changes could help
• Apply specific musical changes to improve the everyday life of your care setting
• Explain why specific instruments might be chosen for the people you support
• Explain how instruments can be used in different ways as a form of expression, and how you can enable the people you support to play in their own way.
• Identify different musical ideas for using instruments with the people you support, and how to facilitate some appropriate activities
• Demonstrate how you would set-up and plan for a music activity session within your setting
• Explore different sources for ideas and resources to further develop your music-making practice in your setting

Who is the course for?
This course is designed for anyone working in an adult care setting wanting to learn how music can support the people you care for.
The content is adaptable to suit a range of care settings, including care homes, day centres, hospices, secure wards, and more.

What software or tools do you need?
To take part in the course you’ll need access to a computer or mobile device. You will also need a ‘reflective journal’ - a means of keeping notes from week to week that you can store confidentially. There will be more information about this during Week 1 of the course.