Share Your Thoughts

[Meredith Pizzi]

Share what you are most looking forward to as you become a Sprouting Melodies provider.

[Victoria Fansler]

I hope to do more work with young children and parents together as my involvement in the community grows. Currently I mostly work with just children, and many of my clients have already lost contact with one or both parents. I am excited to provide a true community-based group as my current work feels much more clinical. I am excited to provide an accessible resource for parents so they can receive the education and systems of support they need. Ultimately my hope is to see fewer kids entering state or tribal custody because more parents in the community feel supported and competent.

[Anonymous]

So glad you have found a place in your path for Sprouting Melodies and that you will be able to further support your community!

[Tori Clark]

There are many early childhood music classes in our community, but none which offer qualified support to families with children with special needs. These families want “normal” experiences for their children. I have a piano student with ASD, and her mother told me that when they received her diagnosis, her dreams of piano lessons for her daughter (along with other dreams, I can unfortunately imagine), disintegrated. So she was so excited to hear that with adapted lessons, her daughter could still take lessons but have the pacing and support she needed to be successful. We have an opportunity to provide “normalizing” experiences for families which also enhance the child’s development. I also love that these classes enhance and facilitate community interaction in a society which is increasingly digital and lacking in face-to-face quality time.

Victoria, the work you are doing is so important! Good luck to you as you seek out grants to increase what you can offer to the Tulalip tribe. It would be so great to see their culture preserved and their children flourishing!

[Joanne Van Eycke]

I am really excited to provide high quality music groups to the early childhood population. After this training, I feel more confidant in choosing appropriate songs and activities. Also, this training has been very motivating for me. Since I have been home with my son for 15 months I have felt disconnected from my professional life. This training has gotten me excited about getting back out there again. It has also given me some great new repertoire to use at home as well as at work. Thank you for helping me to meld my mommy world and my professional world.

[Peggy Grace]

I am most looking forward to implementing the songs that have been shared in the training. It has given me a framework with which to write my own songs for the children that I work with. I am looking forward to the confidence I have gained and will also feel when I do future MTx groups with children. My mind has been spinning with ideas of how to possibly provide some groups in the community through local schools and other childhood programs. I will have to collaborate with my managers to see if some groups could be started, and use the knowledge that I have gained though this course to explain how this can benefit the children, community and the agency. It will require education on my part, but I now have some beneficial resources through the course to provide that education.

[Courtney Kjaldgaard]

I already provide early childhood music classes in my community and it’s one of the best parts about my job. I love working with children of this age range (babies and toddlers 18 months-5 years) and it’s fascinating to observe and witness the exploration and growth that occurs within our classes. Now that I have been trained in Sprouting Melodies, I am most looking forward to implementing the new songs that I’ve learned from this program. My fall programming just ended recently and I managed to try out a few of the songs before we finished for the year and I received a lot of positive responses about them. I am looking forward to providing a higher quality/more polished music program for families in my community and acting as more of a resource than I have been in the past for parents who need help accessing support services. I am also looking forward to being one of the only music therapists in my province (Manitoba, Canada) who offers a Sprouting Melodies-based music program.

[Peggy Grace]

I am very excited about implementing the strategies and songs I’ve learned during this course! I have already utilized some of the songs and techniques, like the use of the surprise, and they have been very effective. If I become a provider in the future, I am looking forward to providing another community resource that will provide music experiences for young children. The potential to educate the community about music therapy and how beneficial it is for children is very exciting.

[Anonymous]

Thank you each for your submissions.

[Janet Buchanan]

Before I started the training, I got to look through the “You and Me Makes…We” book that one of my colleagues had. I was so excited to learn some new music! First, I am just really excited to have learned so many wonderful songs to use with young children. I am also looking forward to returning to work with young children and their parents, this time much more knowledgeable than I was before. After learning everything in these past 10 weeks, I feel much more confident to work with children even younger than 3 and provide quality music experiences for them.

[Debrah Evans]

Going forward, I’m glad that I took the course to get a better understanding of children developmentally in and outside of music, and understand the many and different ways that music can support development and connection with a child.

As a Sprouting Melodies provider, I would hope to create opportunities for low income families to be able to participate in a developmental music course like this one because not only does it promote bonding (which can be hard for a family struggling financially due to parents working), but it also helps provide them with resources for appropriate developmental questions which they may have and not have access to knowing due to time or financial constraints. Additionally, I look forward to being not only a music leader in the community, but a leader in my role as a music therapist which overall helps advocate for the field.

[Megan Neil]

I love the meat of this course and the focus on the music. I am really excited to implement the songs & focus more on the musical qualities to make purposeful decisions- that’s what music therapy’s all about right! Even though these are community groups I agree with the premises of the program and feel that we are uniquely placed as music therapists to provide groups that parents will appreciate, understand, and come back to.

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