Opportunities of Heroic Proportions                             

The Music Medicine Institute is currently planning and seeking funding to create a pilot music therapy program to benefit family members of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen deployed overseas. It will provide clinical services and be a valuable research vehicle to support creation and implementation of sustainable programs at both Hunter Army Airfield and Ft. Stewart, potentially impacting as many as 30,000 Savannah-area military families.  (MMI founder Elizabeth Jacobi is shown below with HAAF commander LTC Jose Aguilar.)

It is expected that the program will be offered from a developmentally appropriate perspective for three separate and distinct groups: elementary, secondary and high school-aged children, with a qualified music therapist utilizing music and music therapy interventions to ensure the optimal emotional and behavioral well-being of military children and the unique stressors faced. 

MMI, as an affiliate of St. Joseph’s/Candler Health Care System, is the only organization in the Savannah area capable of creating and implementing the vital, potentially far-reaching program, including pre- and post-treatment data on the program's interventions and results – research that MMI believes will contribute to the current literature about response to and treatment of military children of a deployed parent and the role of music therapy. We ask that you consider supporting our efforts to help the families of America's servicemen and women.  Please visit our web site regularly for updated information.

In the meantime, we invite you to listen to a conversation between a mother and child about the fears of war:

Click here to link to an NPR StoryCorps Oral History, then click Listen Now.