Jersey Arts Centre works very closely with the Jersey Arts in Health Care Trust charitable organisation. Its purpose is to improve the quality of life for adults and children with all kinds of illness and disability, life limiting conditions, mental health issues and physical and learning disabilities, together with creating happy memories for families and health care staff, through the joy and therapeutic benefits of professionally performed live music and artistic displays.
Professional musicians tour the residential and care homes, day-care centres and hospitals in Jersey and, in some cases, perform by the bedsides of individuals too ill to be moved.
The Trust was established to offer the benefits of the arts in their widest sense to those in a variety of health care settings both in the community and within the health service. It takes an holistic view of the healing process while concentrating its efforts, at any one time, in a number of key areas: provision of performances, under the aegis of Music in Hospitals, to residential homes (private and public), day-care centres and hospital wards; displays of the visual arts in local hospitals; encouragement of local performers within the health care system; dissemination of information on the wider benefits of the arts through residencies, workshops, training sessions and talks; advocacy of the value of the arts therapies, including the provision of public workshops and pilot projects; support for organisations and initiatives with common values or objectives.
Arts in Health Care Trust received The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2012.
Jersey Arts Centre was unable to programme any music tours on behalf of the Arts in Health Care Trust in 2017 due to funding cuts, and only 20 concerts were possible in spring 2020, due to the pandemic.
There were:
- 188 concerts in 2015
- 156 concerts in 2016
- NO concerts in 2017
- 22 concerts in 2018
- 37 concerts in 2019
- 20 concerts in 2020
- NO concerts in 2021
- 53 concerts in 2022
- 104 concerts in 2023
The activities in 2019 and 2020 were made possible thanks to grants from the Association of Jersey Charities, the Roy Overland Trust and the Greville Bathe Fund to the Arts in Health Care Trust.
Historically, five to six tours are programmed in each year, lasting 10 to 13 days, visiting in excess of 40 care settings, with musicians performing two or three concerts per day.
Membership of the AIHCT Board comprises:
- Rod McLoughlin – Honorary Chairperson
- Val Aitken – Honorary Vice-Chairperson
- David Pett – Honorary Treasurer
For more information about Arts in Health Care concerts, please contact: jordi@artscentre.je
