We’ve been busy! Here is a summary:
When Jessie’s Fund started in 1995…
- There were 8 children’s hospices in the UK
- None had experienced music therapy
- There were no courses in using music for communication specifically with life-limited children
- There was no charity dedicated to helping ill and disabled children through the creative and therapeutic use of music
Now…
There are some 45 hospices for children and we have provided musical instruments for all
- 33 have established posts for music therapists with our help, of which 28 maintain the service
- About 280 members of care teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have attended two-part training courses
- We have funded or part-funded around 4,000 music therapy sessions with children in the community
- Soundtracks, our nationwide creative music programme in schools for children with special needs (launched in 2007), is now working in more than 20 schools annually
- A book about our work was published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2005
- Just three years after our inception we were awarded the Guardian Jerwood Award for Community Achievement. We won the DSC Social Change Great Grant Giving Funders Award 2010
