Introductions

[Meredith Pizzi]

Hi Everyone,

To help personalize the experience of this online forum, it’s really cool if everyone goes in to add their picture. Then we will all be able to connect your face to your name and say hello at the next Music Therapy Conference! Here are some simple directions to follow so that your picture will come up in the online forum.

Here are the simple steps – 1. Go to http://www.gravatar.com 2. Create an account connected to the same email address you are using to login to Raising Harmony. 3. Upload your professional image that you want to use for the course. Then we will all be able to see each other as we post comments on the course, and will have a face connected to the name when we do finally meet in person. 4. Post to the forum. Your picture should be included on your next post. (Posts made to the forum before creating your Gravatar account will not have your pictures attached.)

Let me know if you have any questions. We are all looking forward to hearing from you, and hopefully seeing your smiling photo, on the forum soon!

Meredith

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone. My name is Erika Svolos. I am the online moderator for this training. I live in New Jersey with my husband, my 9- month 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 14 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. I recently started my own business/private practice; Music Therapy Services of New Jersey, LLC. I completed the April 2013 Sprouting Melodies training and I am very excited to add Sprouting Melodies to my practice. I began offering Sprouting Melodies classes this past January and I am truly enjoying working with my SM families.

I will be assisting with any questions and/or technical difficulties please see the Forum Technology and Support topic with all of the information on the online forum technology and my contact information.

[Kerry Cornelius]

Hi there! My name is Kerry Cornelius and I’m a newly board certified music therapist. I live and work in central Maryland (I’m based out of Columbia, MD) with Shiloh Center Music Therapy Services, LLC and The Music Institute at Howard Community College. I also maintain a music therapy blog called Songs for Success, where I love sharing original songs, activity ideas and beyond. I graduated from Shenandoah University’s Professional Studies Program for Music Therapy Certification Eligibility in March 2014 and also hold a BM in Voice Performance from Towson University. I primarily work with children, adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, so I am really passionate about working within a developmental, client-centered, improvisational approach. One of sites where I’m currently working is an early intervention center where I see clients individually, and I am absolutely loving working with the little ones! I’ve also previously worked as a preschool music teacher, and really miss leading groups for young children. I’m always looking for new songs and materials to help expand my clinical repertoire and improve my practice, so I could not be more excited about the Sprouting Melodies program! Since meeting and talking with Meredith and Elizabeth at the National Conference in Jacksonville, I knew that I wanted to become a Sprouting Melodies provider and begin extending new music-enrichment opportunities to my community. Can’t wait to get to know everyone and work with you for the next 10 weeks!

[Kristina Rio]

Hello everyone! My name is Kristina Barbo and I am also an online moderator for this course. I live in Reading MA. I graduated from Anna Maria College, and I currently work at Roman Music Therapy Services(RMTS) with Meredith Pizzi as a music therapist, Sprouting Melodies Provider, and practicum student supervisor. I work with a diverse clientele from birth to end of life in various populations. I have been a Sprouting Melodies Provider for just under two years. I participated in the live training in NY with Beth and Meredith in June of 2012, and completed the online training in November of 2012 after I became a board certified music therapist. My online training experience was unique as I had already started to lead SM groups of my own, which was very helpful as a refresher, and gave me the opportunity to absorb the information in a more applicable way. I will be present during this entire online training course to be a resource for you throughout your experience. I am here to respond to any questions you may have and offer my support as best I can, so please feel free to contact me here on the forum! You can also contact me by email with any specific questions you may have at kristina@romanmusictherapy.com. I look forward to getting to know all of you over the next several weeks!

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

Welcome! I love meeting each of you in our on-line forum. Over the weeks we get to know each other well despite the distances that separate us. You will be seeing and hearing me each week on the videos, so I wanted to assure you that I am a real person! I live on Long Island, New York where I work a crazy schedule with a number of different hats. For the past 26 years I have been the senior music therapist at Alternatives for Children which provides early intervention, early childhood therapy and education, day care and nursery school. AFC gives me the hands-on experience to keep writing, composing and advocating. I am fortunate to also be on the music therapy faculty of Molloy College on the south shore of Long Island, very close to the New York City border (yes, a bit of a drive for me). My classes are mostly within the graduate level, and I teach treatment planning, school based music therapy and provide academic internship supervision. Every other year, I am honored to teach an introductory course on Nordoff/Robbins music therapy. Clive and Carol Robbins were my first music therapy mentors.
In the past few years, I’ve had the great pleasure to share my work through writing blogs for both the Raising Harmony and Sprouting Melodies web sites. Please take a look and a listen (there are many video blogs with brand new songs). Share them with colleagues and families.
It is easier now for me to spend time on my passion for music therapy since my children are grown. I have lived through all the phases of parenthood, and will be able to share with you the long view of growing children – whether your own or the children you serve.
Enjoy the course and enjoy the music!

[Kristina Rio]

Hello again everyone. I will be away on vacation from 7/12-7/20. I look forward to reading all of your responses here on the forum once I am back. Please feel free to still email me questions as you are thinking of them! I will be sure to respond on Monday 7/21. Kristina@romanmusictherapy.com

[Shonda Malik]

Hello everyone. My name is Shonda Malik. I work in Ohio in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas. My music therapy alma mater is Ohio University. I interned at a child and adolescent pyschiatric facility/school in Richmond Virginia. I am a mother of four boys. I have been working as a board certified music therapist for 8 years. I opened my own music therapy practice in 2011. I recently completed my masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in December 2013. I work with a range of populations including geriatric hospice, adult developmental centers, private child clients with special needs, and public schools with a caseload of children ages 5-13 with autism and other developmental diagnosis. My individual private clients have been as young as 18 months and I in the past led some preschool music therapy classes before budgets were cut. I absolutely delight in working with early childhood ages. I have attempted to form classes at my local YMCA and recreation centers in the past but sign-ups have never been enough to run a class. My reason for taking this class is to learn marketing strategies to successfully run classes. I’m going to start with the idea Meredith shared of offering free 1x a month sessions at my local library. I most look forward to learning lots of new songs which I will be able to use with my private clients as well as group classes. I also wish to learn more details about development and the use of age appropriate instruments. I look forward to reading everyone’s posts throughout our training. -Shonda:)

[Katherine Sestrick]

Hi, my name is Kate Sestrick. I have my Bachelor’s degree in Music Therapy and Music Education from Nazareth College of Rochester and a Master’s in Early Childhood Education from SUNY Geneseo. I recently moved to Downingtown, PA (near Philly) after having lived in Hanover, PA for 9 1/2 years. I have been providing Special Instruction through PA’s early intervention system for the past 9 years and before that I taught music and practiced music therapy at a public elementary school in the Finger Lakes region of New York State for 5 years. I am hoping to get materials and information to use with families in my early intervention work and would also appreciate more tools for advocating for music therapy in early intervention. I am also open to the idea of starting my own Sprouting Melodies program, now that I live in a more metropolitan area. Looking forward to working with all of you!

[Katie Bagley]

Hello All! My name is Katie Bagley, from Upton, Massachusetts. I work with both Meredith Pizzi and Kristina Barbo at Roman Music Therapy Services. I completed my board certification last month, and received my Bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston. My primary experience has been in geriatrics, dementia and hospice clients, while it is recently since working with RMTS that I have expanded to those developmental disorders and other populations. I am very excited to be branching into the early childhood world through Sprouting Melodies! I am also very interested in neurologic music therapy, which I plan to explore within my career. I know that Sprouting Melodies training will enable me to advance my skill sets as a professional music therapist, specifically by becoming more knowledgable in stages of development and advocacy for early childhood music therapy in schools and communities. I look forward to meeting and learning with you all!

[Katie Romano]

Hello everyone!

My name is Katie Romano and I am from Chicago, IL. In May of 2013, I graduated from Southern Methodists University with a bachelors in Music Therapy and as of March of 2014 I am officially an MT-BC! Before that, I completed my internship at Giant Steps, a therapeutic day school for children with Autism. It was truly was an incredible experience to work with so many talented music therapists and be surrounded by very special children. Since graduation and completion of my internship I have focused my attention and developing skill set on childhood development. I am actually about to start my Child Life Specialist internship to learn more about the support and development of children in the hospital setting. Through this program, I hope to learn more about childhood development within the musical context, so that I can be equipped with as many tools as possible to help children and their caregivers through the different stages of development (especially in the hospital setting). I am very excited to learn from everyones wisdom and expertise!

[Jonni Fogerty]

Hello. My name is Jonni Fogerty. I have a bachelor’s degree in music education from Augustana College and a masters degree in music therapy from Illinois State University. In the past, I have provided music therapy in long term care facilities, day centers, and private schools. I have taught early childhood music education courses for undergraduate education majors and provided early childhood music classes through a music conservatory. Since 2007, I have owned a music therapy agency in Bloomington, IN and contract five music therapists to provide services in the surrounding areas. We serve individuals with developmental disabilities as well as older adults. We have provided early childhood music classes and music therapy groups in the past, but currently only serve this population in a 1:1 setting. I am in the process of exploring branded, marketable programs to expand our early childhood services and was very happy to meet Meredith and Elizabeth at the Great Lakes Regional Conference in Rosemont, IL and learn about Sprouting Melodies. I am excited to gather more early childhood tools and materials and learn more about what this program has to offer!

[Kasey Sollenberger]

Hello! My name is Kasey Sollenberger and I am a graduate of Loyola University, New Orleans. I finished my internship (Harris County Dept. of Education in Houston, TX) and graduated in 2011 and started my private practice, YourSong Music Therapy in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Currently I have contracts with public school districts, a sensory play center, and private in-home clients. I was motivated to take this course for a few reasons. I have always worked with school age children but am interested in gaining more knowledge about MT and development with babies and toddlers. I am also greatly motivated by the community aspect of the program. As you can imagine, Dallas/Fort Worth is gigantic and I find the concept of having such a large community overwhelming! We also have a large population of MT’s here. I am moving to a smaller city nearby and am so eager to be a part of the community there and really have the opportunity to create a community of young families through music therapy. And of course some new material will be nice! So happy to be here and look forward to learning with and from you all!

[Kristina Rio]

Welcome everyone!

[Christina Wensveen]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Christina Wensveen and I am a graduate of the University of Windsor’s Bachelor of Music Therapy program. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada so instead of BC-MT, we have Music Therapist Accredited, MTA. I have been working as a music therapist for 5 years, and started my own private practice 2 years ago. I currently work in a school system, providing music therapy to children who receive funding for early intervention. I work on a lot of social, speech and behaviour goals and am so excited to add songs from other MT’s to my repertoire! I am also looking forward to learning about the developmental stages in childhood and how music therapy can be a part of what that. I thought this course would be way more fun than reading a textbook so I really looking forward to starting!

[Anonymous]

Welcome Christina!!

[Kathryn Costanza]

Hello everyone! My name is Kathryn and I recently worked a couple of weeks up at Adam’s Camp (where the internet was incredibly spotty), so I apologize for my latecomer status. Looking forward to reading through all the posts and catching up this week and next on all of the work. I’m currently an employee at a music therapy clinic in Colorado Springs, CO called NeuroRhythm Music Therapy Services and am pursuing this training as part of my work there. However, this training means so much more to me than that. My background is in Neurologic Music Therapy through CSU (my alma mater: Go Rams! I graduated from CSU in 2011), but a gaping hole in their evidence=based-program is development as opposed to rehabilitation. Since the majority of my clients are either young or developmentally delayed, it can be difficult to apply the techniques of NMT to their needs, since habilitation and rehabilitation address different needs. This training appears to be a perfect opportunity to integrate the neuro knowledge with developmental knowledge to best address the needs of my clients and have some great fun with little ones in the process. Looking forward to the process and to getting to know all of you!

Kathryn Costanza

[Anonymous]

Welcome Kathryn!

[Author]

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