By Lisa Magill, Julia’s House play worker
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Originally called JH Rocks and lasting just one week in the summer, our annual music event has now grown into a month-long festival encompassing music, art, cooking and well-being taking place at both our hospices - we wanted to make it fully accessible so as many children as possible could be involved.
It’s such a great event and involves the whole care team, so it’s quite a mammoth undertaking but such a lot of fun for the children (and all of us too!). We have themes for each week and decorate the whole hospice to match – this year we had giant cupcakes, super-size crayons, big music notes and finally, huge flowers and butterflies for our wellbeing week. It looked amazing!
The children and families we support would never have the chance to experience a festival or go to a summer camp. We want to bring the full festival experience to them, providing something they couldn’t normally access in a safe and familiar environment, so they have the opportunity to enjoy loads of different activities. The festival is designed with the children at its centre - all of the activities suit all capabilities and there is something everyone will be able to participate in. The children can be as active and involved as they want to be, there’s no pressure to stand up and sing but the opportunity is there if they want to, supported by their nurse or carer, who will sometimes join in too!
Quiet time at the festival is important as well, so if children want to have some down time there is space for them to go, which wouldn’t ordinarily be available at a festival.
We are so lucky to have fantastic support from the local community with experts joining us each week to run festival events – music therapists, DJs, several artists, yoga teachers, complementary therapists and chefs. It’s a massive thank you to all of these people with many of them giving us their time for free. And we have lots of our fab Julia’s House volunteers helping every year too.
The festival is definitely one of my highlights of the year. I just love the whole thing; it creates such a happy feeling. I think music is probably my favourite week as it just brings everyone together and has such a feel-good factor. All the children have their own favourite genre of music just like anyone else and it’s wonderful watching them sing and dance and even do their own karaoke!
Play is so important when you are a child with a life-limiting condition. So much of their life is out of their control and they aren’t able to make the same choices other children can, so we make the play here as child-led as possible so they have the opportunity to control an aspect of their life and make those choices. It is important for parents too as they have so many other things to do from administering medication to organising numerous medical appointments and finding time for play can be challenging, so we can help engage the whole family in play.
What’s the best aspect of my job? Having the time just to play and bring smiles to the children’s faces. I feel so privileged to be part of their world.
