Friday

Today is Friday, my catch-up day.

It wasn't originally intended to be a catch-up day - it was supposed to be an individual treatment day. Part of the deal of moving to my big, BEAUTIFUL music therapy room was that I would also play host to our student incentive store. So, for four hours today, I will have all of the classes tromp through my room to go shopping in one of the adjoining closets.

It is difficult to run therapy sessions with an audience (not to mention, completely unethical!!), so Fridays are my day to get things finished and coordinated.

I have to do my documentation from yesterday (I have finished all other documentation from this week - hooray!), but then I am finished with administrative requirements for this week. I have some time to finally make something new for my clients. I'm thinking calm-down bottles.

I bought baby oil, clear glue, glitter glue, glitter, and some beads for my bottles. I'll put them together, super glue the lids, and I'll have some calming tools for some of my students.

I also need to organize some client pictures for choice boards. They are currently scattered around several different devices, so I need to get them onto one and only one. I'm going to focus on that task as well so I can finish my choice boards. Once everything is printed, I can cut it out, laminate it, and velcro it! It will probably be finished in about a month (since I will get started but won't actually be able to finish today) - but, forward progress is my goal today - not completion!!

My Fridays are for future planning. Next week is the Musician of the Month reveal, so I need to find other TMEs to supplement what we have focused on during this month. We will review belly breathing, sound exploration, and percussion instruments while working on our therapeutic goals. I just have to figure out my session strategies for the next week, and it will be time to go!

My Fridays are also for peer supervision. The art therapist and I spend our Friday lunch times off campus and engaging in supervision. She was sick last week, so we didn't get to engage in that way, and I missed it. We get to do supervision today. Hooray!

Happy Friday, all. I hope that you have some time every week to work on things that allow you to be the best music therapist you can be. That's what my Fridays are for - finishing pesky little tasks that become big problems later. It's time to go forward into a potentially creative day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more