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Social Prescribing: making activities more accessible.ÌýDr Tom Benjamin will discuss engaging in community activities to improve health outcomes, especially engaging in music-making to enhance social, cognitive and physical participation. Referrals to community activities have been termed ‘lifestyle medicine’.

GPs have long reported a high percentage of their role as ‘social prescribing’. There is growing interest in making it more of a formal medical process, with new roles and careers. Potential is seen to reduce reliance on medication and therapist service delivery. The Arts, especially music-making, fulfil many of the needs for social, cognitive and physical participation. Online delivery has become more affordable and necessary in the pandemic era. Play-by-Ear methods from the OER textbook demonstrate the way psychological principles of gamification, through ‘levelling the playing field’, enable more active participants.

Dr Tom Benjamin joined the FHMS in 2019. He has run Mental Health Professionals Networks in NSW and has been approved to offer an online MHPN for South Australia on the theme of Social Prescribing. Tom began a psychology career in the largest teaching hospitals in Australia and as a government investigator into mental health. As a researcher in educational innovation he developed online game formats. He is also President of the Medical Consumers Association, founded by his colleagues at University of NSW. He has psychology interests in gamification, online delivery, consumer participation, and applications to learning methods. The Barr Smith Library is funding his forthcoming Open Education textbook ‘Turning Music Education on its Head’. He is seeking interest in Faculty networking on the Social Prescribing theme.