One Thing At A Time

Let me preface this post with a statement - I am enjoying being an Internship Director again. There you go. I like this entire process and all the stuff that goes along with being a mentor. We are currently in the process of transitioning clients to her as therapist, and I am looking forward to watching her grow exponentially in the next several months.

But...

One of the things that I am reminded of, over and over again, with every single intern, is that it takes time to learn this job. There is a learning curve that needs to be taken at a comfortable speed - not too fast, not too slow. Some interns need to be towed into the curve - they are unsure of themselves as therapists, or just plain old don't want to be therapists. Others start racing and have to be slowed down - they see the end and are so excited that they go fast and miss some of the important things that are along the way.

I have a rule for myself as a supervisor. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it is something I strive to do when I am observing and giving feedback. Are you ready for it?

 Focus on one thing at a time.

This seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? I look for one thing during each of my interns' sessions - one thing to track, to think about, to illustrate, to focus on. These "one things" change from intern to intern, session to session, month to month - you get the idea - but they offer me a focus that allows me to help my interns see the sights along their way to being a therapist. 

If I happen to point out Repetitive Word Loop, they may notice that again the next time they visit without me as a tour guide. (I'm really liking this journey analogy...maybe I'll draw a picture of this...) They may rush past Goal Gulch, but I can bring them back to that location to learn a bit more about the geology of writing goals. (Oh, I could go on with this all day...something to doodle, hooray!!) The thing is not to get too distracted by the other things happening at the end of the journey.

This is one of the reasons that I have taken each of the AMTA Professional Competencies and operationalized them. I parsed each one out into the specific skills that I find are essential to be a music therapist at my internship program. For an example, see the picture below. This process has made me really focus on what I want an intern to do when they leave their 1020 hours with me. I can use this resource to track intern development and focus on what needs to be established so we can build.

Snapshot of some of the AMTA Professional Competencies, operationalized for use during an internship.

With this "road map," I can quickly identify where we need to go in every session to get to our destination. I can see where the detours need to happen, and I can steer us to different rest stops along our journey.

If you would like a copy of my entire evaluation, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to share as long as you keep the original author cited (that's me!). Either send me an email or leave a comment here with your email address (I won't publish comments with your email included), and I'll send it to you!

I'm going to go doodle this journey idea...there will be many destinations and side trips, I bet!! How fun!