What are the needs of the families and communities that you work with?

[Anonymous]

What are the needs of the families that you work with?

What are the needs of your community?

How can music meet the unique needs of your families and community?

[Erika Svolos]

Hi Everyone,

This is a great question to not only get you thinking about the needs in your community, but also about how your background and specializations are unique in filling those needs.

[Meghan Hanley]

Many of the families that I work with have difficulty with transferring learned skills to other settings. Music can allow children to work on social, speech, and motor skills with family members outside of a traditional therapy room as well as practice skills at home. In my community, one need that I see is finding social outlets outside of school and work. People can come together through music with dancing, playing instruments, and attending concerts. I have seen the joy from making music with others in the handbell groups that I lead for autistic adults.

[Holly Jurca]

Some of the families or caregivers I see simply need support and assistance with the day-to-day with their children. They might need help with managing emotional outbursts, learning classroom knowledge that might not be understood in a conventional way, or simply bringing enjoyment into their lives. The community that I serve has a number of needs. Shared connection and joy are two of the most important that I have witnessed. Music can allow for shared singing, lowering cortisol levels. Music can facilitate engagement for those who cannot participate in conventional ways. Music allows for a different path to learn and grow, neurologically and otherwise. The point is: music can meet the *unique* needs of our clients – almost anything can be addressed through music.

[Elizabeth Bentz]

I feel like music therapy is not well known in my community. Most families I speak with remark either (1) they didn’t know music therapy “was a thing”, or (2) they didn’t know music therapy was offered here. Advocating what we do and that we are around is very important here. However, in New Mexico we have not had luck billing health insurance, and are only available through early intervention or a specific Medicaid waiver. This has become a big obstacle for families wanting music therapy, since private pay is often times the only option.

[Diandra Doble]

I was on the a similar page as you in my response! Advocating for our field is something that we will have to do for our entire career. It is so important! Especially the financial piece. That is a tough hurdle for a lot of families who would love to receive services and can’t or that start services and have to discontinue for a financial reason.

[Elizabeth Bentz]

I agree! I’ve had clients start and then have to stop for financial reasons. It would be amazing if health insurance would cover music therapy in New Mexico, but that has been an uphill battle that one day I hope to win.

[Diandra Doble]

The communities that I work with could absolutely benefit from more advocacy for the field. Not only do most families not know about music therapy like Elizabeth was saying. In certain cases they have heard the term before, but do not have a complete understanding of what music therapy is and what we do. Providing communities and families with the education on what it is that we actually work towards using music as the method I feel is so important. When provided with that education, I feel as though families and communities will value music therapy even more. The more I realize this, the more I work to advocate in my practice. I am working more on verbalizing what it is that I am doing and why I am doing it as I do it in the session. The littlest thing we do in music can be working on such an important goal in the child’s development, and that is something that I would like for staff, family members, caregivers, etc. to understand. Advocation can go such a long way.

[Holly Jurca]

I agree, Diandra. It’s important to value the education and the method behind using music. I hear the phrase “music heals” all the time, and I really discourage this. Music can be *healing* – that does not mean it heals. Understanding the very measurable ways that music can be healing and helpful is crucial to understanding what we do. Also, important not to neglect the very aspect of joy, which I feel that SM really emphasizes. Joy is a powerful thing and music can bring joy and connection.

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