Alexander Hew Dale Crooke

Temporal mood changes associated with different levels of adolescent drinking: using mobile phones and experience sampling methods to explore motivations for adolescent alcohol use

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Alcohol use during adolescence is associated with the onset of alcohol use disorders, mental health disorders, substance abuse as well as socially and physically damaging behaviours, the effects of which last well into adulthood. Nevertheless, alcohol use remains prevalent in this population. Understanding motivations behind adolescent alcohol consumption may help in developing more appropriate and effective interventions. This study aims to increase this understanding by exploring the temporal relationship between mood and different levels of alcohol intake in a sample of young people. DESIGN AND METHODS Forty-one secondary school students used a purpose-designed mobile phone application to monitor their daily mood and alcohol use for 20 random days within a 31 day period. Generalised estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between differing levels of alcohol consumption (light, intermediate and heavy) and positive and negative mood three days before and after drinking episodes. RESULTS While there was no relationship between light and heavy drinking and positive mood, there was an increase in positive mood before and after the drinking event for those that drank intermediate amounts. No statistically significant relationships were found between negative mood and any of the three drinking categories. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Adolescents who drank in intermediate amounts on a single drinking occasion experienced an increase in positive mood over the three days leading up to and three days following a drinking event. These findings contribute to an understanding of the motivations that underpin adolescent alcohol use, which may help inform future interventions.

Group Music Therapy as a Preventive Intervention for Young People at Risk: Cluster-Randomized Trial.

Background Music forms an important part of the lives and identities of adolescents and may have positive or negative mental health implications. Music therapy can be effective for mental disorders such as depression, but its preventive potential is unknown. Objective The aim of this study was to examine whether group music therapy (GMT) is an effective intervention for young people who may be at risk of developing mental health problems, as indicated via unhealthy music use. The main question was whether GMT can reduce unhealthy uses of music and increase potentials for healthy uses of music, compared to self-directed music listening (SDML). We were also interested in effects of GMT on depressive symptoms, psychosocial well-being, rumination, and reflection. Methods In an exploratory cluster-randomized trial in Australian schools, 100 students with self-reported unhealthy music use were invited to GMT (weekly sessions over 8 weeks) or SDML. Changes in the Healthy-Unhealthy Music Scale (HUMS) and mental health outcomes were measured over 3 months. Results Both interventions were well accepted. No effects were found between GMT and SDML (all p > 0.05); both groups tended to show small improvements over time. Younger participants benefited more from GMT, and older ones more from SDML (p = 0.018). Conclusions GMT was associated with similar changes as SDML. Further research is needed to improve the processes of selecting participants for targeted interventions; to determine optimal dosage; and to provide more reliable evidence of effects of music-based interventions for adolescents.

Barriers and Enablers for Implementing Music in Australian Schools: The Perspective of Four Principals

Aims: To explore and identify the barriers and enablers of music provision in Australian schools, as seen through the eyes of four Melbourne - based school principals, to inform policymakers and other school leadership teams. Study Design: The study used an exploratory design. Place and Duration of Study: Interviews were undertaken across multiple school sites in the greater - Melbourne area between June 2011 and April 2013 as part of a study conducted through the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at The University of Melbourne. Methodology: Four school principals were interviewed from diverse schools across the greater Melbourne area, including primary, secondary, government, independent, mainstream, and special education schools. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and analys ed using a combined inductive deductive approach to identify the barriers and enablers to music provision in schools reported by

Understanding Sustainability in School Arts Provision: Stakeholder Perspectives in Australian Primary Schools.

ABSTRACT Although the notion of sustainability is popular in rhetoric associated with arts programmes in Australian schools, shared meanings are lacking. References to sustainability may be rooted in any combination of pragmatic, economic and/or health bases. We chose to investigate what stakeholders involved in the provision of school-based arts practices understood about the notion of sustainability in the specific context of those programmes. To do this we interviewed a range of school professionals and asked them to explain how sustainability related to arts programmes in their schools. In this article we present the particular elements that stakeholders described as being sustainable. Five categories emerged through inductive analysis that included: benefits for students, benefits for the schools, the arts programmes themselves, physical artefacts, and the capacity for schools to provide arts experiences. Notable were descriptions of sustainability from several schools that saw ongoing programmes as less important than brief arts experiences that students could carry into other areas of their life. Results illustrate the diversity of understandings about what should be sustained from arts engagement for 27 professionals in Australian Catholic Primary Schools. An ‘exposure’ model of arts programmes is articulated that captures the sustainable benefits beyond sustained involvement in and provision of arts programmes in primary schools.

Appropriating school music for economic goals: Exploring evidence of neo-social ideology in music advocacy

ABSTRACT This article explores the extent to which recent policy-based advocacy for music in Australian schools has been guided by economic arguments. This exploration was driven by emerging commentary on the rise of neo-social education policy, which is said to have reframed equality and social justice in education as tools for economic agendas. To explore the presence of this neo-social ideology in school music advocacy, key Australian policy documents have been analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis. Results show that while current advocacy does champion social and subjective benefits, these benefits are ultimately justified in economistic terms. While caveats to these findings are discussed, the argument is made for new education policies that adequately value subjective wellbeing and social justice as goals in their own right.

Resource-Oriented Music Therapy in Mental Health Care

This book gives a comprehensive account of the different theories that underpin and contribute to the practice of resource-oriented music therapy. It illustrates the need to consider the value of a resource-oriented approach in the light of recent academic and political debates in a number of disciplines, including music therapy, musicology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology as well as more general challenges to the medical model of health and illness. By discussing the theoretical landscape that surrounds it, Rolvsjord gives a sound basis for her own conceptualisation of what is needed for a resource-oriented approach, and why it is important to consider the “therapeutic value of the ‘nonpsychotherapeutic’ work in this field” (p 5). This is further illustrated in light of her own music therapy work, both in terms of how her work with clients has informed her own thinking regarding a resource-oriented approach, and how this approach has helped her to make sense of the interactions between her and her clients, and the way that these clients have gone on to use their own musical resources outside of the therapeutic setting. As a result of her insights from both the literature and her own practical experience, Rolvsjord makes the claim that, in general, “Therapy can be as much about nurturing resources and strengths as it is about fixing pathology and solving problems” (p 5). Rolvsjord goes on to argue that, while at first glance a resourceoriented approach to therapy might be seen primarily as focused on strengths, is not limited to this aspect; the role of addressing problems is just as pertinent. In fact it is the critique of the binary conception of health/illness or problems/strengths embedded in the traditional therapies of the “medical model” which informs her claim that: “clearly, strengths and problems both have a place in therapy [...] These need not be treated as separate parts of the therapeutic process, but might rather be seen as interacting aspects” (p 177). Indeed this claim is substantiated throughout this book. Rolvsjord’s command of the literature is impressive, as is her ability to relate it to her ownwork. The book makes clear connections between theory and practice in a way that has the potential to engage people from many disciplines. The case studies are presented passionately and honestly, both from the point of view of the client, and the therapist. One cannot help but to be drawn in to the stories of the two young women and their therapeutic journey, made all the more richer by Nordic Journal of Music Therapy Vol. 22, No. 1, February 2013, 86–87