A/Prof. Helen English

Helen English is a scholar in the field of music sociology and a musician. Her thesis (now published as a book), developed the idea of music as a world-building tool, both for individuals and communities. She is passionate about equity of access to music ands has led outreach to schools in low socio-economic communities in NSW and Victoria since 2012, using the concept of music and world-building to consider how music benefits young people and their communities. This work was presented at two conferences and in two journal articles (2018; 2021). She is committed to advocating for and researching the impact of music on our rapidly growing older population within the emergent field of creative ageing. In 2019 she founded a creative ageing research program in Newcastle with academics from the School of Psychology and Music and Music Therapy at the University of Melbourne (Professors Jane Davidson and Felicity Baker). During COVID-19 she led the adaptation of a planned songwriting program for older adults to online delivery. In 2021 four projects are planned or underway: a survey of older adults’ current and past activities; an extended song-writing program in aged-care homes, an online art-making course for seniors and a life-writing course in libraries. The last two are funded by a grant that English applied for in 2020 with the intention of scaling up creative ageing and drawing in other creative researchers within the university. With this funding, creative writing academics and students will be delivering a digital life-writing course for older adults as a partnership with Newcastle Region Library.