Being An Internship Director: Termination

Being an Internship Supervisor – Graphic looks like a hanging sign. The top of the graphic includes the website URL, “www.musictherapyworks.com” followed by the title, “Being an Internship Supervisor.” and the word, “explained,” on the part of the sign that dangles below.
It is time for my intern to start talking about termination of services with my clients. We have to do things a bit differently around my place because we never know when clients are leaving until right before they leave, so we do not go through discussion about ending services with individual clients. We focus on the intern's graduation from the internship and moving on into their new futures.

It is time.

I am always a bit amused by this process with my clients and my co-workers. Some will be very sad and offer my job to the intern. Others will be happy to know that I am waiting in the wings to swoop in and take over. Still more will appear ambivalent. It always surprises me to see how people respond to the news that every intern will be leaving our facility.

Other than termination, we are trying to figure out the accompaniment for our holiday sing at the end of our school session. I am still not able to bend my finger and still having to splint the finger at work (still can't use my left extremity). I hope to see a hand specialist this week so I can figure out what is going on. I am afraid that there have been tendon issues this entire time that I have not addressed because of the fracture. I am allowed to leave the splint off at home, so I am trying more things without the splint when I am at home. 

The Holiday Sing is a great big time to carol together, so I have to figure out how to get the accompaniment going for our songs in three different scenarios - intern only accompaniment, me on keyboard intern on guitar accompaniment, both of us on guitar, or karaoke tracks for everything. I really doubt that the guitar will happen since I am just now seeing the hand specialist for an Occupational Therapy referral. So, I will see if I can be released to play the keyboard. I hope I am. If that scenario happens, I will need to make a stand that I can use to pivot around the room. I may just figure out the karaoke tracks because it will the most consistent thing.

We will be talking about termination more than the sing over the next several weeks. I do not do much that is holiday based in my music therapy space for several reasons. First, my clients do not always navigate the holiday season well. Second, the atmosphere is saturated with Christmas joy and hoopla and there have to be places where you can get away from all that. Lastly, not everyone celebrates holidays, and more people do not celebrate Christmas but celebrate other holidays during this season, so I try to focus more on winter than on Christmas. So, termination will be a bigger topic than the upcoming holiday and winter break.

I have not counted the number of days between now and break because I am just not ready to see them yet. I know how many days there are between now and the Holiday Sing, but there are so many things to do that are out of my regular schedule that I don't want to know how many days I have until break.

I am focusing on getting things done, but termination talk is on the top of the list because my clients deserve the closing of their therapeutic relationship with interns. My clients do not often get to say goodbye to the people in their lives - they just get moved, so I want them to experience the way most of us close relationships in the world.

It is time to start the day. I have to take a shower, collect some lunch, and head out to work. I have a rough group to start off the morning followed by two groups and a dyad session that are pretty smooth most of the time. I lead one of the easier groups and my intern leads the rough group and one of the easier groups. We have a reward session to facilitate last thing this afternoon before bus duty and then working on TMEs and heading home. We need to talk about termination, and I will be moving back into the music therapy room during my intern's sessions to get students used to me being present again. I am not taking an active role in the session, but I will be present and not in my office. For now, though, it is time for that shower.

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