Nordoff Robbins South West & South Wales covers a wide geographical area from Cornwall in the west, over to south Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the east, and up to South Wales, Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the north. It is nevertheless a currently ‘small’ NR region with a total of 5 music therapists working for NR! Our services were originally developed in this area some years ago by Rachel Millman and Alison Hornblower, and our presence was re-ignited in September 2016 with the relocation of Fraser Simpson (who now oversees the regional service) to Hampshire, and Jo Humphreys to Swansea, who began providing services under a new partnership between NR and ABMU Health Board.
Our delivery in the region is concentrated at present in two main areas. On the south coast we have 3 therapists – Fraser Simpson, Alison Hughes and Anna Tyrrell – working in Bournemouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight; and in south Wales we have 2 therapists – Jo Humphreys and Lucie Phillips – working across a wide area from Llanelli in the west to Merthyr Tydfil in the east, encompassing the urban areas of Swansea, Port Talbot and Bridgend.
Between us we are providing 19 days of music therapy per week, working across a wide variety of settings including special and mainstream schools, hospital oncology, day centres, care homes, rehab centres and hospices. We are pioneering several new initiatives including a new service for looked after children in collaboration with Southampton Music Hub, and in Bournemouth working with a refugee charity. In South Wales we have established a partnership with ABMU Health Board enabling us to provide services to people in a range of settings, and we have a direct referral service in Swansea. Through our partnership with CLIC Sargent we are providing a service to children with life threatening conditions at Southampton Hospital, and at Earl Mountbatten Hospice on the Isle of Wight, where Nigel Hartley is now the CEO, we have a two day/week project successfully established.
Nordoff Robbins would like in time to develop a presence across a wider expanse of the south west region and we would be very interested to hear from any NR graduates in the south west who might be interested in working for us.