By Marcie Klein, Manager, Mental Health Support Services

As a result of a new partnership between the Ometz and Cummings Center mental health support services departments, and thanks to a generous grant from the Montreal Walks for Mental Health Foundation, our clients now have the opportunity to participate in our Glee Club, a combination choir and performance group meeting weekly to create music together. Participants are all adults living with mental illness who are connected to both agencies’ mental health support departments.

Music has long been used in many settings to help people manage symptoms of mental illness and generally to promote mental health and well-being. We now know it can be an extremely important tool in mental health recovery. Music therapy within the context of a Glee Club program uses music to achieve non-musical goals such as building self-esteem and confidence, encouraging team work and social skills, and managing symptoms through the distraction and focus of the music.

Our Glee Club, led by music therapist Victoria McNeill, started meeting last month and has already learned and rehearsed several songs together which they performed at our annual Hanukkah party this week to a reaction of thunderous applause from the crowd!

We are looking forward to many more exciting performances coming soon from our Glee Club and to welcoming new club participants who wish to discover the magic of music in mental health recovery.