About Us
Our Mission, Story, and Presence.
Our Mission
Our charity has been providing music therapy in Hampshire and neighbouring counties since 2008. Our services support a wide range of clients from early years children and young people to adults and older people.
In line with the Code of Conduct of the British Association for Music Therapy, our mission is to: provide a comprehensive and highly professional music therapy service to help pre-school children with language delay and behavioral problems to older age people with dementia and others affected by autism, complex learning issues or anxiety – to cope better with life.
Emotionally and socially it can bring joy to both their lives and the families that support them
Our Story
In 1996, Beccy Read, music therapist and Founder, was invited to form the Hampshire-based branch of the Bristol-based charity Music Space Trust. The Trust had formed in 1991 in answer to the government’s plan to close long-stay hospital provision. It’s aim was to create a ‘home’ for music therapy in the community. Hampshire MusicSpace began with one therapist working in schools in Portsmouth for children with special needs. Over the years, as its reputation grew, so did the size of the team and its operations. ‘Hampshire’ began to include neighbouring counties. Clients included adults and older people. In November 2008, the MusicSpace Trust approved the Branch Committee’s request to replace Hampshire Music Space with an independent charity under the new name: Key Changes Music Therapy
Our Presence
By Summer 2021 the team had grown to 15 part-time therapists, each registered with the HCPC, working with 155 referred clients. 95% of its therapy work is outreach – the therapist travelling to the client’s nursery, school, family home, or care home. 5 % of clients attend sessions at the charity base in Winchester.
In addition to providing regular music therapy sessions for clients, Key Changes provides the following: taster days and assessments for clients, and workshops and presentations for carers. Key Changes also provides an acclaimed annual conference for those in the wider music therapy profession.
What We Do
We provide a professional music therapy service across the community,
both within Hampshire and beyond.
What is Music Therapy?
The British Association of Music Therapy describes their professional discipline as “an established psychological clinical intervention, delivered by Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered music therapists to help people whose lives have been affected by injury, illness or disability through supporting their psychological, emotional, cognitive, physical, communicative and social needs.
Music Therapists draw upon the innate qualities of music to support people of all ages and abilities and at all stages of life; from helping newborn babies develop healthy bonds with their parents, to offering vital, sensitive, and compassionate palliative care at the end of life. Central to how Music Therapy works are the therapeutic relationship that is established and developed, through engagement in live musical interaction and play between a therapist and client.
A wide range of musical styles and instruments can be used, including the voice, and the music is often improvised. Using music in this way enables clients to create their own unique musical language in which to explore and connect with the world and express themselves.
What our charity does
Key Changes is a Hampshire-based music therapy service and, from our charity space in Winchester, we deliver a professional service that supports young and old who have developmental, learning, emotional, social and personal issues.
Through the innate fascination for music and music-making, we work directly with vulnerable, struggling children and adults, helping them to discover new ways of communicating and to open doors towards experiencing a more fulfilled life. Our music therapists are registered with the HCPC and are supported by the Key Changes’ program of Continued Professional Development, including our Annual Conference which is open nationally to therapists and other professionals with an interest in promoting the therapeutic use of music.
Our charity has been providing music therapy in Hampshire and neighbouring counties since 2008. We support a wide range of clients from early years children and young people to adults and older people; we work with children, with families, with adults, and in mental health care.
What services we provide
Our charity has been providing music therapy in Hampshire and neighbouring counties since 2008. We support a wide range of clients from early years children and young people to adults and older people; we work with children, with families, with adults, and in mental health care.