After 25 years in accounting, Cameron Phipps asked his leaders for one day a week to play music for residents. They said yes, and residents living with dementia are feeling the difference.
Cameron Phipps spent a quarter of a century as an accountant before he found the work that mattered most to him. Today, one day a week, the BaptistCare employee packs up his cello and visits residential homes around the country to play and sing for older Australians, many of them living with dementia.
He calls the role “life-breathing, life-giving and life-affirming”. It exists only because he was willing to ask for it.
“Seniors in aged care are no less worthy. They deserve our very, very best. For me, that’s music.”
A career change, then a second leap
Phipps did not take a direct route into aged care. He laughs that it took “25 years as an accountant, in industries that I was no longer interested in or passionate about, before realising my calling was elsewhere”.
Leaving a respected, well-paid profession was a gamble. But he knew he needed to turn his attention “to making a contribution, to look for meaningful ways of engaging, particularly those with dementia”.
Joining the sector didn’t give him that outlet straight away. He started at BaptistCare in a full-time procurement role.
“Even after entering aged care, I still had to pursue and push for a way for me to fully carve out a way to connect and make a change. I was in procurement and doing that full time but I knew that music had to be a part of my role, so I made a case for it.”
So he put that case in writing.
“About 2.5 years ago, I put in a business message to my then boss, the CFO, as well as head of residential, Alan Waters, and asked if I could be released one day from procurement to do music therapy. And they listened and accepted it. Now one day a week I’m in a music therapy consulting style role, visiting residential homes across the country.”
“I absolutely love it. It fills my cup.”
When the first notes land
On a recent visit, Phipps arrived at a BaptistCare home in Morwell, Victoria, to find a packed room waiting for his concert. The audience included residents across the full range of cognitive abilities.
His set list leans on songs that have stood the test of time: Love Me Tender, Can’t Help Falling in Love and The Last Waltz, plus My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music. The cello isn’t the only sound in the room. Residents join in on the lyrics, singing loudly and word for word.
The response is the same almost everywhere he goes.
“Without a doubt, wherever I go, there will be a resident that comes up to me and says, ‘you have just taken me back to such and such a time and place’.”
“I am constantly stunned by the intensity of what happens, I’ll sing something that was someone’s wedding waltz, I’ll play their mother’s favourite hymn, it happens pretty much every time, and I can’t tell you how deeply moving that is.”
For residents living with dementia, he says, the music still reaches them.
“Someone’s dementia isn’t able to stop them connecting with the music. I can only describe what I see on their face as joy, it’s them living well, not just existing.”
The moments affect him just as much.
“Residents, these human-beings will replay their life from 50 or 60 years ago, and I’m broken in an instant with happy tears to see before my eyes that the music I’ve played has impacted them.”
Caring for the whole person
Phipps believes aged care can go further than clinical needs. He has seen what happens when it does, and he argues that “holistic care of the elderly, when it comes to their emotional and spiritual needs, it’s equally as important as clinical, to addressing the whole person”.
“It’s more than just emotions, there’s something deeper going on inside these residents, they can be pulled from a place of not looking forward to anything, which I would call despair, to joy, it’s priceless, I don’t know how else to explain how profound that is for me.”
Find what fills your cup, then ask for it
Phipps wants other aged care workers to take something from his story. Whatever their job title, he urges staff to draw on “a personal gifting or passion”. Following what “fills your cup”, he says, can bring ‘co-healings’ for the staff member and the seniors in their care.
“I would say that if something is on your heart strong enough, it cannot be ignored, when you’ve got something unique, that you know in your heart of hearts is going to absolutely benefit and bring joy to another human being. Don’t hesitate.”
That passion doesn’t have to be music.
“For me it was music, for someone else it could be trains, or sewing, or cooking, there are so many ways, we each need to know and pursue what it is for ourselves.”
He says it also takes courage from the sector itself.
“We need to have courage in aged care to push the envelope, to try new things, to innovate, to back your passions that you know will bring joy.”
His advice on how to start is simple.
“Write to your leadership team like I did, make the case, go and do the same thing that I did in your own organisation. This is how we, together, change aged care and deliver the gold that is holistic care.”
Years into the role, the work still amazes him.
“To allow people, human-beings, a moment in time that is unforgettable, that truly lifts them from some dark places, and hopefully allows them to consider and ponder remarkable truths, that they are valuable, they have a future, I’m consistently amazed at what music can do.”
