Karen Diamond

Director of Professional Affairs

Karen Diamond qualified from the Guildhall in 1990 and worked for a regional music therapy charity as Clinical Services Director before establishing her own music therapy consultancy practice in 2015.

Karen has worked with children and adults across a wide range of care pathways specialising in recent years in learning disability, long-term conditions and early years. Part of her work in early years involves coproduction with Sure Start projects in Belfast which won the 2023 BAMT award for delivering innovative ways of providing effective music therapy and the overall winner of the Advancing Healthcare Awards. Karen founded and directs the Equal Notes Choir, a choir for adults with learning disabilities who were delighted to perform albeit virtually as part of the Conference in Belfast in 2020/21.

She has also worked in or managed services in mental health, physical disability, brain injury, psychological trauma and dementia. Karen has significant experience of strategic development, collaborative working and service user engagement.
Her consistent engagement with stakeholders across care pathways in health, education, community and third sector organisations has effectively promoted the music therapy profession. Karen is a keen advocate that music therapists should see themselves as being an integral part of the Allied Health grouping and is past chair of the Allied Health Professions Federation NI. She has been involved in several ‘AHP’s and collective leadership’ initiatives and believes we should not be afraid to highlight the role music therapists have across various care pathways.

Karen holds registrant partner roles with the Health Care Professions Council and is an Associate Lecturer with St Mary’s University College Belfast delivering on the undergraduate and postgraduate education courses. In 2022 she received a public appointment to the NI Practice and Education Council for Nurses and Midwives in Northern Ireland.