Being An Internship Supervisor - On Hiatus

I am not an internship supervisor at the moment. I am on hiatus, and I have been enjoying the solitary existence. I have been rearranging my storage areas without having to worry about the work spaces of others, and I am reveling in the opportunity to think through things without having to explain them. At the moment, I am also thinking about my next round of interns while I am waiting for current applicants to finish their applications. I have several of them, but none of the applications are complete at this point. All of them are waiting on a letter of reference... well, except for the two who have letters of reference but no application. It is interesting what things are revealed to me in the application process, but I digress.

I decided to re-up my AMTA membership at a tier that I felt was comfortable for me just so I could accept interns in this calendar year. I still feel the pull towards training and mentoring, but I am not as enthusiastic about our professional organization these days. I guess I will do as many CMTEs as possible this year and then reevaluate next year about membership. For now, though, I am committing to another year of interns.

I am going through my assignments, my expectations, and my thoughts about what interns need to be able to do while they are with me and after they leave my program. This is an interesting thing to do every so often because there are things that I am convinced need to be part of an intern's experience. I am going to try to change things up - mostly on my end rather than on that of the interns'.

I have found that I need to teach more. I will need to be more explicit in what I expect from the assignments and how to use time wisely. This will require more time and energy on my part than I have been to devote lately. I will need to sit down and show interns the resources that are all around them. My last interns have not explored the music therapy clinic. They have not asked for the resources that are literally available to them without anything other than a request. They have not read their internship handbooks. They have not used the resources that are right there that could have helped them get through the assignments without any sort of pain. I have tons of stuff - templates, finished projects, examples - but no one takes advantage of those materials. It boggles my mind!

So, I will change my perspective from that of internship supervisor from years ago to teacher.

Do you remember when we were engaged in a passionate discussion about how a four-year program of student was not enough to teach all the things that someone needs to know about being a music therapist? I think we are seeing this discussion and all its implications at the moment. We are still working with music therapy students who did not have the benefit of full-time education or client interaction. Will it get better when we move out of the pandemic student era into the hybrid education student era? I wonder.

I am not a professor. I doubt that I will ever be one because I find that world more frustrating than that of the facility where I work. I cannot fully understand the complexities of working in academia, but I know that there continues to be a disconnection between the skills that my interns arrive in my program with and what I want them to be able to do. Most of those unachieved skills come in the form of music production, critical thought, and problem-solving. Why aren't these things happening in other areas?

I am spending time during my supervision hiatus on exploring how we can help older adolescents develop logical and critical thinking skills. This is not what I want to do when an intern comes to my program, but it seems that I will have to teach these things before an intern can actually meet the competencies where I want them at the end of the program.

What do I want?

I want an intern who can see possibilities. I want an intern who can play music, match pitch with their voice, and sing consistent melodies. I want an intern who knows that the theory classes that they took have something to do with their future profession. I want an intern who has experienced the need to compose a song - any song and who has accomplished that composition. I want an intern who will advocate for his/her/their time management and who will speak up rather than just avoid any and all thoughts.

Are these things too much to ask?

My future interns will go through a pre-internship competency-based evaluation of my designing rather than the ones that their professors have designed. These do not indicate the interns' confidence and competence on the skills that I want them to demonstrate. I want to know what they think about their competence on the skills that they need when they walk into the program on Day One. That is my constant goal, and I guess I need to be more specific and purposeful in these areas.

Lots to think about on this chilly, sunny, holiday morning. Time to leave you to go get groceries and then cook a bit.