The Interactive Music-Making training scheme for early years staff gives them skills drawn from music therapy to use with the children in their care on a day-to-day basis.
Seven awards are available, providing a fully funded course place, a set of intruments, and a contribution towards staff cover and travel costs. Applicants who are not eligible for the full award and who are unable pay the full course fees, can apply for a subsidised place. Applications for an IMM award must come via settings, not individuals.
The South-London based charity has 20 years of experience in training care practitioners and has been running a bursary scheme for early years practitioners since 2017, which it says has created opportunities for more than 10,000 children to access music as part of their early years care (of whom 25 per cent have identified special educational needs and 49 per cent report English as an additional language).
In association with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, the part-time programme teaches early years practitioners an approach designed to boost communication, expression and social development of the under-fives in their care, within a structured programme of child-led play. By the end of the course, participants are confident and able to run their own regular music sessions independently.
Alexia Quin, director of Music as Therapy International, and co-founder of Interactive Music-Making, said, ‘Early Years practitioners are extremely significant adults for many young children, so strengthening the resources they have to offer the young children in their care is invaluable.
‘Music is something we turn to instinctively when interacting with children and Interactive Music-Making is designed to help early years practitioners maximise on its potential - the ways it can support children's development - and to acquire the skills and experience needed to use music confidently in a targeted way.’
She added, ‘At a time when everyone has been under huge pressure resulting from living and working alongside Covid, the course offers practitioners themselves a supportive learning space. They can meet like-minded practitioners, share experiences and take new ideas back to work from week to week.’
The IMM course will run from September 2022 to May 2023 from a venue in South West London.
The deadline for all applications is 1 September 2022.
- To apply visit https://www.musicastherapy.org/our-approach/interactive-music-making/
- For more information about Music as Therapy International visit www.musicastherapy.org.
- For information about Interactive Music-Making visit https://www.musicastherapy.org/our-approach/interactive-music-making/