More Changes to How I Do Music Therapy

One of the things that I have always struggled with is change. Now, in my brain I know that change is something that will and does happen quite often. I am a big fan of change when I am the one who is initiating it. I am less of a fan when changes are made that affect my job directly but NO ONE TALKS TO ME ABOUT IT UNTIL EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON!

Anyway, there are tons of changes happening at work right now. One of the changes has directly affected me and my music therapy space, so I stepped up and talked to my new supervisor about my solution to his problem.

Here's the deal. In January 2021 (just 5 months ago), I moved most of my music therapy instruments into a closet that had opened up. I was guaranteed by my (at the time) supervisor that there was no need for that space to be used for anything other than music therapy. Okay. I took over the space and filled it to the brim with the piano, the drum set, all of my Orff instruments, and most of my sensory, visual, and novel instruments. It is now comfortably full.

Back in May, we got the information that our administrative team was changing which affected our school program. They shifted some people around in jobs, and my immediate thought was, "Where is that person going to have their office?" I knew in my heart that my closet was going to be the top place.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon. I had dropped by the music therapy room to put something away before heading out to bus duty, and the new principal, the new instructional coordinator, and their administrative assistant were in my closet. I tried to eavesdrop, but there wasn't much that was being said. As they left the closet, they each greeted me but didn't bother to tell me what they were thinking about.

But, I knew.

Yesterday, I tried to find my new principal all day. Every time I could make it down to his office, he was not there, but his chair had moved positions, so I knew that he was present in the building somewhere.

We then had an emergency meeting after school where we heard more news about other administrative situations (that will probably not affect me as much as the school stuff), and I stopped the principal to talk about the closet situation. Basically, administration gave up an office in the education wing around January and now we were an office short. The vocational training department needed a place to go, and my closet was going to be it.

Now, I don't like the idea of people in my closet for several reasons, but the most important one is that I hate people tromping through the music therapy room at random times to go into an office. We have done this before (all of us - me and the vocational training department). They are always very apologetic, but it is still an interruption that completely ruins any sort of groove that we get going in the music therapy room. So, in the spirit of teamwork and understanding necessity in the workplace, I offered up my two office spaces for the vocational team rather than the closet.

I do not think my principal had even considered that type of switch, and it took him some time to understand why that would be a better use of space for me than having people walk through my therapeutic space on a regular basis.

He liked the idea, so I am starting the process of mapping out what needs to be in the closet and what can be placed in storage back inside my room. I also made some requests - more cabinets that are locked in the music therapy room itself, a wall to separate the office area and the music therapy space (he suggested a curtain - I said that would be a great TEMPORARY fix but that a wall was really needed. I will be taking materials from my office and will be installing both my intern and myself into the closet along with the drum set, the piano, and the Orff instruments. Everything else will head back into the music therapy room into new-to-me cabinets. 

I am okay with this change. I was assertive and shared what would be best for me and for my music therapy clients. I am part of the change and am not having to adjust to someone else's plan that affects me without being part of the conversation. I put myself into the conversation and found a solution that will work for us all.

So, now I will have a little less therapy space (about 6 foot by 30 feet will be hallway rather than therapy space), but I will have sessions that are not interrupted by people coming out of the closet every 20-30 minutes while I am running music therapy. There will be closed doors (at least as long as there is just a curtain) to block out their conversations while I am doing music things, so the noise will be at a minimum. I will be sharing an office space with an intern yet again, but we will still have space enough to do what we need to do. The only thing that will really change is that I will have to kick one intern out of the office to do supervision with another intern, but that will only happen when I have more than one intern which will not be relevant until March 2022 at the earliest, so I have some time to adjust to that idea and come up with a plan.

It was a mind-reeling sort of afternoon, but a good form of mind-reeling. Also, my Promethean board arrived and should be installed today at some point. The loss of some space in my room makes the board placement a bit more complicated, but I have a plan for that as well.

I am confident that this change, while it hurts a bit to lose space and to have to move things around yet again, will be beneficial for those outside the music therapy room. There are times when sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and this is one I can live with. I certainly don't want to be selfish and insist that I get all sorts of unused storage space (which is what my office really is - the work happens in the music therapy room). The other thing is that I can get another new wall in the music therapy room that I can paint with all sorts of music-y things! (I just finished painting a music staff on the wall that will no longer be part of my space on Monday, as a matter of fact!) There are rays of light breaking through the clouds of change...