Student Seeks Entry Position Urban Community Planning, Culture, Arts and Health

We recently heard from subscriber and student, Monica Dikkes. We are publishing her letter below. Monica is a student in the Professional Planning Program at the University of Waterloo. She is very interested in urban and community planning as well as heritage and culture and the links between arts and health. We would like to support this student in her ongoing job search. If you have an opening or know of any possible job prospects for Monica we would be pleased to hear from you. CM


To whom it may concern:

I am currently a fourth year Honours student in The University of Waterloo's Professional Planning Program. I am interested in a full time entry level position. My last year of schooling is scheduled so that I can start work immediately. I have experience in CAD work but I would like, if possible, to broaden my background and follow up with valuable practical experience in my chosen area of study. I am interested in all aspects of urban and community planning, especially heritage and facilitating community wellness, food systems sustainability and planning, cultural management and the link between art and health.

I am motivated to combine my passions, experience and education and apply my skills and knowledge to meet and exceed expectations. Along with my initiative and ability to function efficiently in a fast-paced environment, I strive to uphold the integrity and standards of the company for which I am employed. I am highly focused on meeting deadlines ahead of schedule with a keen eye for detail. I enjoy prioritizing my schedule of duties and believe these skills will enable me to succeed in the realm of junior planning and management. I thrive in team oriented surroundings and am motivated where there is room to learn and share creative experiences.

I look forward to hearing from you to set up an interview to further discuss a possible position.

Monica Dikkes

Send inquires for this applicant email to ccahte@cmclean.com

Music Therapy, Juno Award Winning Songwriter and Music Therapist Offer Music for Rest and Stress Relief

David Bradstreet

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

I was pleased to hear recently from Juno award winning songwriter, musician and producer David Bradstreet, a multi-talented artist with a special interest in the intersections of the arts and health.

David is widely known as a composer, songwriter and vocalist with nineteen albums bearing his name, a high profile Juno award early in his career and subsequent Juno nominations and music credits including film and television scoring, and record production for a variety of artists from Jane Siberry to Colleen Peterson.

When you hear the name David Bradstreet you might remember his well known song "Renaissance" (Let's Dance that Old Dance Once More). I had an opportunity to hear David sing "Renaissance" at London Ontario's "Home County Folk Festival". If you've heard the song, you may feel it is like a waltz you have always known, stepping in time through life's passages as it moves, a song that recalls the lives of two people in love and their many years together.

In addition to songwriting, performing and producing music for film and television, David has
an interest in the power of music to heal and bring comfort to seniors. After working with the successful company "Solitudes", he began playing and recording music designed for therapeutic purposes to help address sleep deprivation and for stress relief and, working with associate *Amy Clements-Cortes, a music therapist at Baycrest Centre, David launched a new recording company called "Theramusic".

Relaxing music can help slow down heart rate, breathing, thinking and can enable a person to reach a deeper level of rest and tranquility. A study published in February 2005 in The Journal of Advanced Nursing found that listening to soft music at bedtime assisted older adults to sleep better and longer.

I have been listening to the two CDs "Therasleep" and "Theracalm" for the last few days while working and when journaling at night before I go to sleep. There may be an additional creative benefit to "Theramusic" as well. I have found the music helps gently release stress and tension and it has a "sustaining or "flow" quality that opens the mind for reflection and creative thought.

Congratulations to innovators David Bradstreet and Amy Clements-Cortes, for using music to heal while developing drug-free techniques to help enhance care and induce relaxation and sleep.

Go to Theramusic Website for More Information

*Amy Clements-Cortes is a graduate of the Honours Bachelor of Music Therapy Program at the University of Windsor with a voice major and a Masters in Music, University of Toronto. In addition to her research and therapeutic work Amy also runs her own vocal studio.
See http://www.notesbyamy.com/aboutamy.html for more information.

Nutritional Science, Educator/Dietitian Ventures Across Borders with New Book

We were pleased to receive news today about Jacqui Gringras, Ph.D, RD and her recently released book "Longing for Recognition", York, UK: Raw Nerve Books.

"Longing for Recognition offers a radical new way of understanding nutritional health practices. In contemporary food culture, the work of dietitians has accrued new and urgent meaning, and "Longing for Recognition" is addressed to that group of practitioners. The author, herself a dietitian, crafts an autoethnographic fiction that presents a critical and thought-provoking argument for a more self-reflexive, relational, and embodied profession. Her compelling narrative draws the reader into its timely call for rethinking what counts as knowledge in
dietetic education. "Longing for Recognition" will be invaluable for dietitians and other health care professionals who wish to enhance their practice as one that considers first and foremost what it means to be human."

Jacqui's progressive research engages autoethnographic, phenomenological and arts informed methods as a means for understanding dietetic theory, education and practice. She has also taught courses at Ryerson University School of Nutrition, among them, "The Art of Storytelling: Advances in Nutrition Counselling Practice." CM




Information about this book

Quotes of Note:

"It is only if we question the space between, across and beyond disciplines through transdisciplinarity that we have a chance to discover meaning and to establish links between the two post-modern cultures, integrating both science and wisdom."
Basarab Nicolescu

Calgary International Spoken Word Festival Promotes Creativity and Expression Through Words

Calgary International Spoken Word Festival 2009

Calgary, Alberta

April 01 - 05

Banff, Alberta

April 15, 16, 17

www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com

"When the dust of antiquity lives in the voice,
rooted in the oral tradition
then, stories become more than a combination of words
they transform into the resonant sounds of our lives, opening~"

(excerpt from the website by Sheri-D, more info)


I plan to be in Alberta April 15...see you there! CM

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change, Groundbreaking reference book valuable resource

Creative Arts in Health and Interdisciplinary Practice
Inquiries for Hope and Change

Cheryl McLean, Editor
(Editor/Publisher The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal)

Robert Kelly, Associate Editor
(co-editor "Creative Expression Creative Education, creativity as a primary rationale for education")

Published by Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Temeron Books

This current book is in process and will be released in 2010.

“Creative Arts in Health and Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change" will feature informative and illustrative accounts from leading health researchers, social scientists, artists, therapists, nurse educators and other professionals, stories of topical research along with dynamic examples demonstrating how the creative arts in many forms as inquiry and in action applied across disciplines can make a critical difference for individuals and society as a whole.”

"This new ground breaking reference text will be a welcomed and validating collection evidencing with first hand accounts and through concrete examples the creative arts applied in research and interdisciplinary practice."

Information email: ccahte@cmclean.com

Embodiment and Creativity Featured at Medical Humanities Conference Durham

CENTER FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES

DURHAM UNIVERSITY
ASSOCIATION FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES CONFERENCE 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

The sixth annual conference of the UK and Ireland Association for Medical Humanities takes place in Durham, UK, 6th to 8th July 2009, on the general theme Taking the Body Seriously. The conference’s aim is to bring humanities resources, both single-discipline and inter-disciplinary, to bear upon our understanding of how our bodies constitute both the possibilities of, and the constraints upon, leading flourishing lives. Key themes include:


• the role of the body in framing experience, knowledge, values and the imagination
• the place of the body in relation to creativity and the arts, both as generator and as object
• how science’s methods and agenda reflect the fact and form of our embodiment; and
• the place of medical conceptions of the body, health and well-being within prevalent contemporary understandings of human flourishing

In addition to these themes, there will also be a general section accommodating papers on topics of broad interest within medical humanities.

Papers under all of these themes, including the general section, are invited from medical humanities researchers, teachers and healthcare practitioners. Papers may be in any of three forms: full plenary presentation (40 mins); elective paper presentation (25 mins); or workshop presentation (15 mins). Abstracts of up to 250 words should be submitted electronically by 1st April 2009 to the organisers at cmh.admin@durham.ac.uk. Abstracts will be reviewed independently and decisions made and communicated to applicants by 24th April 2009.



Jane Macnaughton, Martyn Evans
Centre for Medical Humanities
Durham University

*Note for Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal subscribers and blog visitors: I was contacted today about this conference and advised that the organizers are seeking presenters and potential speakers. CM