29th March 2019

BBC One’s Songs of Praise was filming at Guild Care’s Bradbury Wellbeing Centre recently for an episode to be aired on Sunday 7^th April 2019.

The theme of this particular Songs of Praise episode is ‘Music Makers’ and the reason for the visit was to film music therapist Hazel Child with service users at the charity’s day centre which provides respite to carers of people with dementia.

Hazel comes to the Bradbury Wellbeing Centre fortnightly and provides an hour long music therapy session for a group of ladies and gentlemen with dementia who sing and play instruments.

Hazel, who is a committed Christian, works for the organisation Waves Music Therapy. She said: “Recent research has found that music is an important tool to help manage emotional states and symptoms of dementia, helping to retain memory, stimulate responses and possibly delay the onset of the disease. Yet despite knowing the effectiveness of music therapy just 5% of care homes are using it effectively.”

Nicki Freeman, Guild Care’s Day Services Manager, added: “At Guild Care we’re committed to ensuring the people who come to us have a day full of stimulating activities all within a fun and safe environment cared for by highly trained staff. We believe music therapy is a great way of interacting with people living with dementia and we can see how people’s faces literally light up when they take part in the sessions.”

Guild Care runs a wide range of respite and short breaks for carers of people living with dementia these including outings in the community for their loved one, as well as, activities based at its day centres. The Bradbury Wellbeing Centre is the only purpose built building of its kind in Worthing and is open Monday to Friday and alternative weekends.

If you would like to find out more about the respite services run at the Bradbury Wellbeing Centre please call our Customer Services Team on 01903 327327 or contact our Customer Services Team here.