Music Network for mental health

Written by Heidi Everett

My name’s Heidi Everett. I live with schizo-affective disorder which impacts my life pretty seriously every day. I’m a member of the Music Network for mental health and I have been since it began. Many people in the Network have a similar story to mine.

When I first met the BiPolar Bears I saw a group of people who lived with similar struggles, but instead of the usual psych ward sing-a-longs, they were out there playing rock songs – and original ones at that! That’s when I discovered the Music Network for mental health that Phil, the leader of the Bears, had set up in 2004.

At its core, the network is about music, the music of each individual and the huge benefit of expressing this within a safe group environment. The music comes from people’s lived experience - at home, in a psych ward, on the street, through a psychosis or on the bus. The regular song-writing and performance workshops invite people to write music that uses real language rather than the language of illness and recovery. It’s sometimes confronting, sometimes loud but always brilliantly honest, and always completely original, no folky group sing-a-longs here!

The Music Network accepts people in a completely open door environment – no forms to fill out or imposing questions about people’s mental health status. In fact, the more experience a person has lived in the mental health system, the more the Music Network seems to work its magic.

Participants come from community mental health services, psychiatric wards, forensic psychiatric facilities and from the broader community. Participants live with various mental health issues, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and health related mental health issues.

The Network’s activities are facilitated by respected music industry figures like Ross Hannaford, Pete Satchell, Helen Begley, James Black, Russell Morris, Kavisha Mazella and the late Jacqie Gaia. They have all shared their knowledge with the Network and supported us in making our own way in music.

I coined a phrase “where there is music there is hope, where there is hope there is music” and the Music Network is the place that time and time again proves that there is hope when all else seems hopeless.

Details of the program can be found at www.mentalhealthmusicnetwork.net

More info on the BiPolar Bears can be found at www.bipolarbears.com.au