Picture credits: Kim Kirk Photography
Over 200 children in 4 St. Johns County schools could be impacted by not having access to music therapy due to funding cuts for the 2017-18 school year. We have an opportunity to double the impact of donations up to $25,000 with a matching grant provided by The Persbacker-Wyman Family Foundation. Each of the 4 schools must raise $42,000 to $50,000 to be up and running by July 1, 2017. We have less than 60 days to make this happen. Help!
Sound Connections: Music Therapy for Children with Special Needs was designed and facilitated by the Cultural Center in 2006. Music therapy is a well-established professional health discipline that uses music as the therapeutic stimulus to achieve non-musical treatment goals. The Cultural Center’s board certified music therapists, Minda Gordon and Candice Sirak, utilize music as an educational related service to promote learning and skill acquisition at four public schools in St. Johns County. Music therapy, an evidence-based practice, shows a correlation between speech and singing, rhythm and motor behavior, memory for song and memory for academic material, and overall ability of preferred music to enhance mood, attention, and behavior to optimize the student’s ability to learn and interact. Sound Connections serve approximately 600 children with varied disabilities. Both of the Cultural Center’s therapists work 32 hours a week during the school year at Cunningham Creek Elementary, PVPV/Rawlings, Valley Ridge Academy and Ocean Palms.
Both therapists are evaluated twice a year by the staff in the school system and by the Director of Programs for the Cultural Center. Both therapists follow the AMTA Best Practices to include:
Mission: Bring the arts into the life of our community.