The British Journal of Music Therapy

Donald Wetherick

Donald Wetherick is a music therapist, trainer and researcher. He studied music at Edinburgh and Cambridge universities and music therapy at the Nordoff Robbins Centre in London. He currently works for the NHS and is Deputy Head of Music Therapy at the Guildhall School.

His music therapy experience includes work with children, adults with learning disabilities and people affected by HIV/AIDS and he currently works in adult mental health.

From 2012-2015 he was Chair of the British Association for Music Therapy. He is also a co-editor of the British Journal of Music Therapy.

Becky Dowson

Becky Dowson is a music therapist and researcher. She gained her MA in Music Therapy from Anglia Ruskin University in 2012 and her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2020.

She worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham for five years, most recently as co-Principal Investigator for the PRESIDE study, a randomised controlled feasibility study of community singing groups for people with dementia and their carers. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University.

She has a range of clinical experience including working with children and adults with learning disabilities, and a particular interest in dementia care. She currently works for Chiltern Music Therapy, where she holds clinical and operational roles.

Davina Vencatasamy

Davina has been a Music Therapist since qualifying from Anglia Ruskin University in 2006, specialising in learning disability, CAMHS and prison services. She is currently an associate lecturer at the University of Derby and the Lead Arts Therapist at HMP Grendon, a therapeutic community prison.

She is in her third year as a PhD student of Expressive Therapies at Lesley University in Boston, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on race, power and oppression in therapeutic spaces. She has published two articles in the BJMT, one as the first author, and contributed several chapters to music therapy literature. A full collection of her publications can be found here: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6045-0351

Davina is passionate about inclusivity and accessibility and hopes to bring this energy to the journal so the innovative Music Therapy work that is currently being done across the nation (and globe) can be celebrated.

Emma Maclean

Emma is a practitioner, researcher and educator. She graduated with a PGDip in Music Therapy (Nordoff-Robbins) in Edinburgh in 2004, an MA Top-Up from Anglia Ruskin University in 2010 and a Professional Doctorate in Person-Centred Practice in 2026. 

Emma’s music therapy experience includes working with children in mainstream education and with additional support needs, older people and dementia. She currently works in statutory NHS services in community adult mental health as a music therapist and lead arts psychotherapist. She is also employed as a lecturer in Music Therapy and collaborative academic lead for Play Therapy at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Emma is excited by research that emerges from practice and is co-shaped with persons who have used arts therapies services. Her doctorate embraced arts-based approaches to relational enquiry to co-create a framework to enable therapists and persons attending to agree and review meaningful changes that can be brought about by taking part in music or art therapy.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4121-0779