music, therapy, and me

Being an internship director means there are times when I have to deliver bad news to an intern. This might be something like client or staff issues, remediating skills, ethical situations, changes in supervision, or other things that come up during the time an intern is with me. One of the easiest things to talk to an intern about is extension of the internship past the proposed end date due to need to get clinical hours, but that is never the easiest of situations either. One of the things that I like about being a National Roster Internship Director is the ability to change and adapt the program to accommodate the needs of each intern that arrives through my door. I tell my interns that their time with me will be THEIR TIME WITH ME. Each intern needs different things from me, so no intern's program will be identical to another intern's program. I have had to extend the programs of several of my interns. Most of the time, when we extend a program, it is because of attendance....

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...

It is always interesting to see what happens in the internship of each person who comes to do an internship at my facility. Each intern is unique, and each intern has their own quirks, challenges, and contributions to share with me while they are around. In the past 25 years and 36 interns, I have learned so much about myself and about being a supervisor because of the people who volunteered to be interns at my facility. Some of the lessons are not as easy to swallow as others. Here are some of the things I have learned about myself through my role as a National Roster Internship Director over the years... Music therapists do not share much common language. I have to be ready to let go of my clients to allow every intern to become who they will be as therapists. I have to take breaks from being "mentor" in order to be "therapist" for my clients and my own well-being. I have to be a micromanager for some interns - this is not a role that I enjoy, AT ALL, but it is so...

I have entered the season of boredom as an internship supervisor - the intern is doing their full caseload, and I am on light duty. These two things are combining to my time during every intern's time with me where I am no longer "therapist" for the group but am "lady sitting in that room, occasionally yelling things." This is not my favorite time as a music therapist, let me tell you! I am on the brink of making some decisions about my internship program. I am not sure that my program can sustain two interns at the same time anymore. We have recently lost another classroom, so we now serve our client caseload in eleven groups. This is down from fifteen groups four years ago. Since the pandemic, we have not been able to have a full census due to lack of staff members, so our school has shrunk as well. In addition, our population is not an easy one to work with, so our teachers are moving on to new jobs in other districts where there is more funding and better st...

Have you ever heard of "the hidden curriculum?" This concept (resources that I found helpful are listed below) is that there are many things that are included in education that are not part of the formal learning objectives. Students have to learn how to function within the educational culture in order to succeed. Those who conform to the expectations that are in addition to the educational material presented are more successful than those who do not conform. The "hidden" part comes from the situation that these expectations are often not taught or demonstrated - they just exist in the mind of the educators. I'm not exactly sure why this particular phrase popped into my head this morning - I haven't been thinking about what I will write this morning - but it seems like a good time to write about all of this. As you know, I sometimes struggle with situations that arise from being in an internship setting. One of those things is getting interns to complete tas...

I am currently in the awkward place of going through the assignments that I offer to my interns during their internships. I am having to make decisions about what to include and what to let go of right now. Now, this is something that I do to some extent after every run of interns. I always review their assignments and look at what worked and what has to be changed. Over the last three interns, as I have mentioned several times lately, no one has been able to finish assignments on their due dates. This concerns me as it indicates (to me, at least) a failure on my part to help my interns establish good time management practices during their time with me. So, I am trying to figure out all sorts of things when it comes to assignments. For this process, I start with the AMTA competencies. In case you didn't know, I strive to run an internship that is governed by the AMTA competencies - every assignment is based on the competencies and is part of the operational definitions that I have ...

Going into work yesterday morning, I had not written any of the five TMEs that I wanted to finish this week. Knowing that Friday is my day to do so much planning and preparation, I was a bit concerned that my goal would not be even approached. The day started with me doing some task box brainstorming from the floor of my clinic while my intern did documentation from the day before. Once I could get back into my office space, I was able to finish four TMEs from my Ideas for Development file. My Ideas for Development file is a folder where I keep all TMEs that I have started but not finished. So, I have TME pieces in there. I finished up the four that needed parts and pieces that I could focus on. All four had music composed already but needed things like procedures and therapeutic function of music sections completed. It took me about an hour to finish the four, move them into their alphabetical folders, and add them to the database. The point of all of this is that I was able to finish...

I am not always comfortable improvising. My jazz band teacher in junior high made me very nervous about making up any sort of solo and my perfectionism sealed the deal with that anxiety. My teacher would bark that it was my turn to improvise, and everything I knew about music and music theory would dribble out of my ears and I would end up crying (well, in seventh grade, I did - I found a backbone in eighth grade). This pattern of panic and loss of knowledge continued until my internship when my internship director gave me the best way of thinking about improvisation in music therapy sessions. "Just match your music to what you see your clients do, and then sing about what is going on."    - Sheryl L. Kelly, RMT-BC When she told me that little bit of reframed information, I felt that it made sense to me and my brain. I could do that. It wasn't rooted in perfection or following someone else's theory rules, it was rooted in my clients. Now, I still don't like jazz i...

#36 has finished training and will be in music therapy for the rest of her time at the facility. This will be #36's first full week in the music therapy room, and this week will be full of teaching names and introducing clients to #36. We are going to be exploring our country of the month - Sweden - this week, so there will be lots of video watching and opportunities to talk about cultures. This introduction time is always interesting. Students think that I am leaving because I am introducing them to someone new. Others have been through the routine, so they are not as responsive to a new person in our environment. This week is for observation and getting familiar with our routine. My internship program is set up to provide lots of observation time during the first month of an intern's time with us. I want interns to feel like they have a good idea what we do before they start doing what we do. By the end of this month, #36 will be starting the process of taking over some of th...

This is going to be a quick post because I am late to start my morning. I spent a bit too much time luxuriating in clean, warm sheets this morning and am now trying to catch up a bit. I am going to leave my house later than usual so I can take advantage of some more time here at home before heading out into this week of holiday festivities... So, in a former iteration of my life as a music therapist, I spent lots of time talking to music therapy professionals about being internship directors. I led trainings and encouraged many therapists to be internship supervisors, and it has always amazed me at how little coursework is out there for intern supervisors and even less is out there for internship directors. As a practical person, I like to think about the practical elements and things that happen when you take an intern into your clinical setting. If that is something that you are interested in learning about, then keep reading! This post is for you. Being an internship director is dif...

One of the best things about being a bit overly passionate about any one thing is that I can write an entire series of posts about the topic without having to think much about something to write every morning. My major issue with the American Music Therapy Association Professional Competencies is that there is too much room for interpretation. I understand the need for some flexibility within the competencies, but as they are written now, they do not meet the requirements for objectiveness, clear definition, and being able to be evaluated in a yes/no or pass/fail system. So, I completed operational definitions for all of the competencies from the perspective of my job in my facility for my interns. (Lots of "my"s, aren't there?) Operational definitions take something that has lots of interpretations and makes that something into a series of specific tasks/skills. I know that my list of definitions is not complete, but it works for my internship program. Here's how it ...

It is Monday, which means Gandalf gets to do her favorite thing - lick a graham cracker.  It is Monday, which means that MJ gets to do one of her favorite things - talk about supervising music therapy interns as part of her role in this profession. One of the most difficult parts of this role is being a gatekeeper to my clients and to my music therapy self. I do not automatically accept someone to my internship if I have an opening. I do not have to take an intern, ever, so I can afford to be choosy about who comes to work with me and with my clients. There are times when I do not actively seek an intern to be with my clients. There are times when I just want to be therapist and not have to be mentor/coach. The problem for me comes when I have applicants for a specific time that I do not feel will be a good match for me or for my program. Over the years that I have worked with interns, I have found that one of the most important indicators of whether they will be able to work with ...

Three days ago, I said, "Farewell" to intern #33 and now I am getting ready for intern #35 who will start in 10 days. Intern #34 is still going strong at the facility and will be around until October, but now is a perfect time to review #33's time with me and make some changes for #35. #34 is stuck with the revisions that I made after #32 - that's just the way this goes. So, it is time to sit down and make some revisions to all of my internship documents. I will start with the Internship Handbook - this is facility-specifc, though I guess I could make a more general version to share with others...hmm. Tangent - need to focus. The first part that I look at is the assignment list. These assignments have changed pretty significantly over the years that I have been an internship director, but I feel that the changes reflect things that I need to know about in my professional role. I am sure that there are other things I could include in my assignments - for example, I do ...

As I am getting ready for work this morning, I am thinking about the fact that there are five days left until my next break. We work on Friday this week because of how the summer session and inservice days worked out. That is a no-contact day meaning that kids will not be present. I have an intern who needs her hours and then will be graduating and another one that could use an entire day of work time to get assignments done. I am hoping to be moving into a small office in my music therapy room. It is my old office, and I am looking forward to getting my professional space back. As much as I enjoy being around my interns, I really like having a place where I can do my own thing. I don't know if things will be moved out by Friday, but I will prepare for that move regardless. I have two cabinets that will make the move across the room with me. That will give my interns more space and less clutter to have to deal with, a place of privacy where they can talk about me, and a place where...

Yesterday, I did something that I should not have done, and now I need to fix it. Today is our annual "Let's hype kids up on sugar and forbidden caffeine and send them into a world of unstructured and forced fun" day, and I hate this day with a passion. Unfortunately, I shared that hatred of the day with my interns yesterday in a frustration-fueled rant that I think may have caused them to not be able to think of this day as fun at all. That's my goof and what I need to apologize for today. I got bogged down into the mire about my personal feelings about this debacle of a day, and I spewed that all over my interns who have not had a chance to experience this for themselves. I treated them more like long-time co-workers than like impressionable learners, and I am not feeling good about that fact. So, I will go in an apologize to them about my attitude yesterday. They will do what interns will do, and they will sat that everything is okay, but it isn't. I know that ...

I think we have started a new tradition at my facility - YouTube Friday afternoons! We spent the last hour of our music therapy day watching 80's music videos (with some videos from other times - we HAD to finish up with the Muppets and Bohemian Rhapsody, of course!). It came about in a silly way, but an organic way, so I hope that we will continue this type of interaction and music sharing beyond these two interns. I love having two interns at the same time, and I really love having interns overlap with two different interns during their time with me. We have had many intern traditions over the years. There were the pens bought by senior interns for their junior interns. There have been chair upgrade ceremonies. We still have the anointing of the senior intern, but this has become my tradition rather than one that my interns share with one another. I had an intern wisdom notebook a long time ago, but that tradition died off - it was my fault completely. I may ask my next intern to...

I am currently in a place where I am spending more time watching interns than doing music therapy, so my boredom is increasing. To be completely clear, the boredom is not at all due to what my interns are doing with our clients but with the fact that I am not doing much client interaction and am stuck in my office, listening and watching rather than participating... The enforced decrease in client contact has the benefit of a surge of creativity that is happening right now. Since I am tasked with listening and responding via observation notes, I have lots of time to sit and think about music, about music therapy, and about what I enjoy doing. I cannot spend time working on my visual aid system really easily because I have to respond to session events as they happen, but I can write notes and jot down ideas for future TMEs while I am watching. I have one group to co-lead today and three groups to observe completely today. This happens every time I have two interns at the same time. They...

It is time to go back to work after a week off for Spring Break. I am nervous about going back - I always am when I have a new intern starting. I have been up since a little before 3am, and I am starting to feel the "get there early" twinges of anxiety starting to rear their ugly heads. It is WAY too early for that, but I still am feeling those twinges. It has been a long time since I have had two interns at the same time - about a year now. I do this every so often when I need to take a break from being supervisor and to simply be therapist. I had offered a position to someone last year who would have filled up my time, but that person declined the offer, so I left it open. The second time frame where I could have had an intern was a time that I really needed to be therapist again, so I did not fill up the available spot. This is one of the tricks that I have to keep myself from burning out - taking time away from supervision in order to be therapist again. I have lots of in...

We had a nasty weather incident yesterday. There is snow, sleet, and ice on the ground around my house right now. School in my town has been delayed by two hours to give our road folks a chance to treat the roads that need more attention. School in the town where I work is not canceled (yet - I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though!!) I will be letting my supervisor know that I will be coming in slowly and will probably be lots later than I usually am on Mondays. History shows that I tend to have more difficulties driving on days like this than I do on days where the superintendent actually calls a snow day. This will be an interesting day. The week before any break is always interesting, but add in some ice and snow, and you get a group of people who are longing for spring to arrive but who are still slogging through wintry weather. There will be lots of feelings because some clients will be going to visit family members and there will be some who are not. Teachers will be excited ...