Friday: Things I Care About In the Field of Music Therapy

I didn't blog yesterday or the day before because I was sick and then just tired. It has been a couple of days since I've felt like writing, but I feel like I can sit down and think again, so here it goes.

This morning, I feel the need to write something, and I pulled off a post-it note from my blog idea board. "Things I Care About in the Field of Music Therapy." So, here are some thoughts about what I care about in this field of ours.

• Music Therapist Longevity - One of the biggest questions I have had in my career is "why do music therapy clinicians leave the field?" We have always been a young profession. It seems that the majority of clinicians that are out there are still in their first years of being professional. About half of my 36 former interns have left the field but about half are professional music therapists, so I think that is pretty good. I just wonder what happens during the fifth through tenth year of a music therapist's life that tends to lead them out of the music therapy clinical profession. Now, when I talk to people about why they leave, the biggest reasons seem to be financial compensation and difficulty finding jobs as music therapists, and I can understand those situations. There are times when your desire cannot match your opportunities, I guess. I have always been happy to relocate for a job that fits me and gives me chances to be a music therapist. Not everyone can do that. When someone asks me if there are jobs for music therapists in the world, I tell them that there are plenty of music therapy jobs, but they are not always in convenient places for every music therapist. If someone is willing to move, then there are lots of opportunities, but you have to be either able to relocate or willing to make your own jobs happen. That's one of the reasons that I moved to Kansas from California - I am not someone who is a good entrepreneur, but I am an EXCELLENT employee, so I moved to where the jobs were. I am fortunate to have a job that challenges me every single day. I want to know why others stay music therapists and why others leave.
• How to Talk to Others About Music Therapy - Ah, the elevator speech. I enjoy learning what others say when they are asked to explain what we do as music therapists. (I especially enjoy hearing what my family members say to describe my profession.) How do we encapsulate years of training, education, and experience into 15-25 seconds? I do not usually use the AMTA definition of music therapy when explaining what I do because that definition is not easy to understand - BY ANYONE! (We REALLY need a better definition!) My easy definition is, "I use music to help people reach their personal goals." It is not a great definition either, but I think it does a better job of describing what I do to someone who is not interested in evidence-based practices and all that. I want to know what other people say during these conversations...
• Clinical Training - how do we provide experiences for students to ensure that they are competent music therapy clinicians? This is one of my biggest challenges. I love figuring out ways to help my interns figure out what they need to know about being a clinician. I think we need to do a better job of equipping our new professionals with knowledge and experience before we send them out into the world. I don't think we do as good a job as our students deserve, and there are many reasons why this happens. We need to do better. That is one of the reasons why I talk about competency-based clinical training often. It is the system that helps me understand how to provide this better training, and it works for me. I wish competency-based clinical training (as I understand it and use it) was more prevalent in our education and internship programs rather than just used as buzzwords. Many of the so-called "competency-based programs" do not have pass/fail formats or clear operational definitions established before students start their course of study. There you go.

It is time for me to wrap up and head out into the world. Thanks for reading - what are your things that you care about in this field? Comments and conversations are always welcome!