Being Internship Supervisor - Competency-Based Clinical Training

I use the AMTA Professional Competencies as the foundation and format for my National Roster internship. This shouldn't be a surprise if you are a habitual reader of this blog, but if you are new, then click the link to see what I am talking about. 

The American Music Therapy Association Professional Competencies are the foundational document for education and clinical training experiences in the United States. This document is intended to outline the skills that music therapy students need to master in order to do this job at an entry level. It does an okay job of this, but there are still things that need to be done in order to make the professional education of music therapy students truly competency-based.

I am the music therapy product of an educational system that did not have the competencies as a foundation. I eagerly embraced the competencies when they were adopted in 2000 as both a graduate student and as a music therapy supervisor. I have delved into the world of competency-based education and clinical training as far as I could possibly delve. I strive to make my internship program as based on the competencies as I possibly can - every assignment, task, and chore that my interns do are linked to these skills. If something is not listed on the document, then my interns do not need to be doing that thing. If I can't justify where an assignment fits under these skills, then I can't really ask my interns to do that assignment. I also use the competencies as the foundation of my evaluation for my interns.

Now, all evaluations are supposed to be competency-based at this time and place. There is supposed to be a link between all evaluated skills and what students are doing in their education but the competencies are not always defined in a way that makes it clear what skills are desired...

Let me explain - I always use this one as an example because it does exactly what I hate about the competencies...

A.1.1 - Under Music Foundations, Music Theory and History: Recognize standard works in the literature.

Okay. As a professor, I would initially define this as "passed music history requirements." As a clinical supervisor, though, I have many questions. What are "standard works?" How do we evaluate this "recognition?" What is "the literature?" As a clinician that works with adolescents, my standard works and literature are very different from a clinician that works with older adults.

As an internship supervisor, I took each one of the competencies and defined them based on my clinical expectations, rigors, and population. For this one, I went through an operational definition process to determine what each of these pieces indicated above means as a music therapist in my situation.

The benefit with having operational definitions is that they can be evaluated in a Yes/No manner (one of the tenets of competency-based education). This makes evaluating students pretty quick for me. I can identify situations where my interns are completing tasks without preparation or practice as proficient. I can identify the skills that have not been demonstrated or the things that are emerging as habitual and instinctual. My interns know pretty well what I will expect to see from them at the end of their internship at the beginning of the internship. They also know where I will be evaluating their skills - I indicate that they will demonstrate specific skills in specific settings and assignments. This allows me to tie my evaluation of their skills to specific instances of demonstrable elements of music therapy in a way that allows me and my intern to focus on their clinical training goals.

By the way, internship folks, I am always willing to share my document with any of you. All you got to do is ask!!

I am getting ready to head into a busy week of our Extended School Year. I have filled up almost all of my individual spots, so it is time to get back into doing individual music therapy sessions again. I have one individual and one in-class atmospheric session to lead, three group sessions to supervise, and an intern consultation meeting before bus duty and then heading to home to move my desk away from the currently locked sliding glass door that I want to get fixed on Friday. It will be nice to get back to doing individual sessions. I hope that my back will hold out through this increase in my activity at work. See you tomorrow!