Introductions

[Meredith Pizzi]

Introduce yourself to the group. Tell us about your professional experiences and what motivated you to take this course. Be sure to include where you live, if you are already doing work in early childhood and how you would like to make this information part of your practice.

[Cassandra Reyna]

My name is Cassie Reyna. I recently graduated from Eastern Michigan University but am now living in Petersburg, VA. I work at Poplar Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, which houses acute and residential units for adolescents, an acute unit for adults, and a crisis/rehab unit for past and present members of the armed forces. I am enjoying working with these diverse and challenging populations but would love to return to working with children in a few years after completing this course and NICU-MT training. I completed my internship at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and ultimately would love to end back up in a children’s hospital and/or working in early childhood. I’m looking forward to learning new repertoire and solidifying my knowledge of music’s role in early childhood!

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone. My name is Erika Svolos. I am one of the online moderators for this training. I live in New Jersey with my husband, my 2.5 year old daughter, and our four cats. It is a joy to be apart of this fantastic program and to join in your Sprouting Melodies journey. I am a graduate of Marywood University and have been a music therapist in New Jersey for the past 17 years. Over that time I have worked in a variety of settings including in-patient child/adolescent psychiatry, a private clinic for autism, a large urban public school, private practice, and a private special education high school for individual’s with emotional and behavioral disorders. In August 2013 I started my own business/private practice; Music Therapy Services of New Jersey, LLC. I completed the April 2013 Sprouting Melodies online training and it is a wonderful addition to my practice. I began offering Sprouting Melodies classes in February of 2014 and I have truly enjoyed working with my SM families.

I will be assisting with any questions and/or technical difficulties. I will be sending you an email with information about the online forum technology and my contact information. If you do not receive the email, please contact me at erika.svolos@gmail.com.

I am looking forward to getting to know each of you over the next ten weeks!

[Gwendolyn Van Baalen]

Hi everyone! My name is Gwen Van Baalen. I graduated from Lesley University just over a year ago with a masters degree in music therapy and mental health counseling. While in graduate school, I interned with at-risk school-aged children and, later, adults with severe mental illness in a long-term, in-patient setting. I currently live in Cambridge, MA and work for a wonderful early intervention program in Cambridge and Somerville. I love using my music therapy and mental health background in my work with infants and toddlers and their families, and I will likely be starting a music therapy group through my organization in the fall. Through this course, I hope to expand my music therapy skills and knowledge related to early childhood development and group work. I also hope to gain more information and resources specifically related to early childhood mental health and music therapy intervention.

[Elizabeth Ferguson]

Hello! My name is Elizabeth and have a private practice in NH. When I went to college for music therapy I also minored in child psychology. I am looking forward to bringing all the developmental stages of childhood together with musicing! So excited for this course!

[Tracy Schoenberg]

Hello! My name is Tracy and I’m a stay at home mom of a 2 and 5 year old that have some special needs of their own. I graduated from Illinois State with a Masters in music therapy 13 years ago and undergraduate in music education. My internship was at a VA hospital working with many different populations ranging from substance abuse to psychiatric to dementia, and later working with a special education district, therapeutic school, elderly population, and recently working with my music therapy friend at Epilepsy foundation. I live in Illinois, and would love to make this information part of my practice someday. So far the hardest job I’ve encountered is motherhood so I’m looking forward to learning more about child development and music.

[Alice Sorensen]

Hi everyone,

My name is Alice Sorensen. I’m a graduate of Molloy College, and I’m coming up on three years as an MT-BC. I did a practicum with Beth at Alternatives for Children back in 2012, which was when I surprised myself in learning that “yeah, I’d like to work with kids again someday.” I’ve mostly worked in hospice and with geriatrics, and most recently I was at Brookdale Hospital for just over two years working with Alzheimer’s/Dementia patients, typical geriatric patients, HIV/AIDS and stroke/rehab recovery.

I felt the need to go in a different direction with my career overall, so I took a FT job as a church music director for a Catholic parish in Brooklyn back in October. This career move included aspirations to go into private practice as a music therapist, once I got settled in at the church. My hope is to bring Sprouting Melodies to the Bedford-Stuyvesant community, as my boss has offered use of our church space to facilitate this and is very supportive of music therapy.

I currently live in Brooklyn with my two kitties. I am looking forward to completing this training and to meeting all of you!

[RaeAnna Zinniel]

Hello Everyone,

My name is RaeAnna Zinniel and I am going to be a senior at Wartburg College in Waverly IA. I am from Sleepy Eye Minnesota. I always have had a love for children of all abilities, and through practicums I now know for certain that I want to focus my practice on children especially early childhood. I am currently starting my search for my internship and hope to find one where I can work with young children. After my internship I plan to move back to Sleepy Eye and start a private practice because in our area there are no therapists and there is a need in the community. I hope to use the things I learn from this training to bolster my knowledge and understanding of music and child development and to one day start my own Sprouting Melodies class.

[Marchele Gilman]

Hi My name is Marchele Gilman but everyone calls me Shelly. I live in Ontario, Oregon. I graduated with a BS in Music Therapy in 1998, worked briefly in the profession, taking time off to raise my children. Three of my four children were diagnosed with special needs, so I devoted my time to them until I could see that they were stable and doing well. About 3 years ago, I became board-certified again and am currently working with special-needs children. I have an opportunity to run a preschool music group at a school of music in my area, and I would like to learn all I can in how to run a successful program.

[Alison Albino]

Hi all, my name is Alison Albino. I’m from Connecticut, but I’ve been living in Boston for the past five years. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in May of last year; I dual majored in Music Therapy and Music Business. I’m about halfway through my internship right now at Roman Music Therapy Services. Roman Music Therapy has such a broad variety of clients that they work with, so throughout this internship so far I’ve been able to work with people from all walks of life including older adults with dementia, special needs children and adults, veterans, and hospice care. I’ve also had the pleasure to sit in on Sprouting Melodies classes throughout my training. I love being a part of the classes so much and can’t wait until I can run them myself some day. I’m really looking to learn more in depth about the early childhood stages of development and how to use music with children and their families throughout those stages.

[Jessica Triana]

Hello everyone! My name is Jessica Triana and I currently live and work in the Boston area. I graduated with my masters in mental health counseling and music therapy from Lesley University last May. Throughout undergrad and graduate school I was fortunate to work with various early-childhood and school age populations in the states and abroad through practicums and internships. I found the most joy in pediatrics, which is where I am now. At Franciscan Children’s, more than half of my caseload is infants and toddlers requiring intensive inpatient rehab. Although often challenging, I really enjoy working with the family unit and I hope to start an outpatient group focused on early development. I am looking forward to any information and resources that will expand and deepen my understanding of music therapy and child development. In particular, I hope to learn more about this work within family systems.

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

Welcome! It is always so exciting to see the variety of experiences and education that each of you bring to the Sprouting Melodies Training forum. You will get to know me through the videos over the next ten weeks, but here are a few more tidbits. For most of my week I am on the floor or in a tiny chair working through music with children at Alternatives for Children on Long Island, New York. We are fortunate to have great support and our program is almost 30 years old (the amount of time I have been working there!). I am also proud to be an adjunct faculty member in the music therapy program at Molloy College. Teaching really keeps me active in the profession as well as keeping up with the latest research and literature.
Your on-line forum moderator, Erika Svolos, is amazing and will be guiding you through the course as well as keeping you (and us!) on track. I will be jumping in to post and look forward to reading your responses. I am always available by email for any questions or comments. Feel free to get in touch with me at Elizabeth@RaisingHarmony.com.

[Anonymous]

Welcome everyone! It is a pleasure to, virtually, meet all of you and read about your backgrounds and work. Please look in your inboxes and read the email I sent on June 24th. Also, so that there is no confusion in the forum. Please keep to answering questions in the forum topics created by Meredith. It gets confusing for myself and other participants which question your response was for, if it was not in the topic created. If you have any difficulty posting please contact me immediately. See you in Week 2!

[Rachel Lighty]

Hi everyone! I am a little behind on this course… I just found out about it a few days ago and had to jump on the opportunity! My name is Rachel and I am living in the Salt Lake area in Utah. Most of the work I have been doing is with school age children with developmental disabilities. I also work with adults at a developmental center. What got me interested in early childhood was working in the NICU and with the babies at Primary Children’s Hospital during my internship. I am excited to get back into working with this age group as some contracts for this population are starting up for me in the next few months. I am looking forward to adding some more repertoire and to have a framework to help me plan sessions for these groups.

[Anonymous]

Welcome Rachel!

[Flora Whitmore]

Hello!
I, like Rachel, am a little behind on this course, but let me introduce myself too! Hi! I’m Flora Whitmore, a MT-BC from Vermont. I currently work in a practice with two other music therapists (Music Blooms Music Therapy) out of Burlington, Vermont. I graduated from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia with my Bachelor”s degree in Music Therapy in 2009, and did my internship at Holland- Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto, Ontario with fragile children with complex continuing care needs. I am mostly school-based at this point- I travel all over and work with kids with developmental disabilities, emotional/behavioral/ learning issues and autism. This is my first year with the practice- before that, I was a music teacher/ clinician at a small behavioral school. I am super excited to be increasing my knowledge base and exploring more in the early child hood realms. I mostly work with kids ages 5-19 so this is a teeny bit out of my normal wheelhouse, but I had some experiences with younger children in my internship and really enjoyed them. I am looking forward to developing my skills around early childhood musical interventions!

[Ayelet Weiss]

Hi! My name is Ayelet Weiss and I currently live in Manhattan. I got my B.S in Music from Binghamton University and then continued to get my M.S in Music Therapy at Molloy College. I also did an early practicum with Beth at Alternatives for Children. Working with children was very foreign and challenging for me as I had very little exposure to that population. I was then lucky enough to have Beth’s support and guidance as my academic internship supervisor at North Shore University Hospital Center for Extended Care and Rehabilitation with the geriatric population. Before I graduated Molloy, I got married and moved to Connecticut for my husband’s training and finished my degree from there. After becoming an MT-BC I started working at Connecticut Music Therapy Services, which is a Sprouting Melodies provider (and where I first heard about Sprouting Melodies). Again, just as I was getting settled in to the job, we had to move back to NYC for the next part of my husband’s training. Since moving back to NY I have been working outside of the field of music therapy and raising our 20 month old son…which finally brings me to this course. I have been dying to get back into our field that I love and want to go back to doing meaningful work. Having a toddler now brings me back to wanting to understand development and hoping that I can learn to work with a population that was a real struggle for me. Additionally, I have taken my son to many “mommy and me” type music classes and realize what a need there is here for a program that is rooted in research based practice by a music therapist! I hope to gain an understanding of early childhood development and the proper tools to be able to fill this need in my community.

[Anonymous]

Welcome Aeyelet! Thank you for sharing your story. I am not too far away from you. I am located across the river in NJ. I think this course will be a wonderful support as you venture back into the profession. I have a 3 yo and also found that there is such a great need for quality music and movement programs from families. I am so excited you have chosen to join us.

[Virginia Caldwell]

Hi Erica,

My name is Ginny. I went to school at Michigan State University for my undergrad and masters. I primarily work in traumatic brain injury and hospice but am looking to start a practice and include more early childhood music therapy for low income families. We just recently moved back to Michigan where I went to school but I am from the Chicagoland area and still provide services and mentor ship out that way. The south side of Chicago is very underserved when it comes to music therapy and I would like to help to change that. I had a lot of experience with children in practicum during school. In TBI I do have Pediatric patients but not groups. I have two little boys and am pregnant with out third so I have a small group to practice on at home in the mean time;-) I am excited to learn all I can!

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