What are the needs of the families you work with?

[Meredith Pizzi]

What are the needs of the families you work with? What are the needs of your community? Share with the board how your families and communities might be unique.

[Nicole Drozd]

I think the biggest need the families I work with is support and validation for the work that they have already been doing with their children. I have had the opportunity to work with 1-2 families that really want to see their child succeed and be happy through music. Sometimes family members are hard on themselves if the child acts out or does not participate much throughout the session while I am there-So I provide as much positive and educational feedback as I can during and after each session. Many of the families I work with also need economic support to be able to afford music therapy services-I hope I get to a point where I can get paid for my services but also help with some of the burden on the families I work with.

While I see a need for the civilian community I work with, I see a much bigger need in the military community I work with. The military families I work with generally stay in this area for about 2 years or less and move again. I have noticed that some of the younger mothers (who are also new “MilSpouses”) do not always know about services that are around in the area for their kiddos-whether they have special needs or not. My hope is that this summer I can begin programming in this area and offer opportunities for military families to not only better connect with their child but also to connect with each other and with other civilians.

[Julia Park]

Nicole, because Sprouting Melodies provide variety of programs for children with peers, siblings, and families, I think it would be an excellent tool to work with military families and their children. It is difficult to raise children when you are moving so frequently without much support from the other spouse because they are gone a lot. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for military families for not having the stability in their home because you are in a new environment every 1-2 years where you need to rebuild the community all over again. That sounds very stressful and exhausting. I also think Sprouting Melodies would be a great tool to support the military families.

[Julia Park]

I plan to go back to work in August using Sprouting Melodies. It has been a challenge for me to make the transition from a working professional to a full time stay at home mom. As much as I love spending time with my baby, the past 8 months has been a full of questions, uncertainty, and exhaustion. I want to use my experience as a new parent to help support and educate new parents through Sprouting Melodies. The needs of the first time parents are: chance for the parents to have fun, connect with other parents, and ask questions. As music therapists, we can fulfill those needs because we are trained to meet both musical and non-musical goals.

[Susan Gannon]

I work in a clinic for children that is a significant distance from my home (about 45 minutes). The needs of the families I work with are mostly in direct relation to their special needs children. I probably see mostly children on the autism spectrum, a few with Down Syndrome, and other syndromes and disorders. A few have isolated speech delays. They expect me to provide the best therapy possible and want to see improvements in speech and language, cognition, self-regulation, etc. They also want me to spend some time talking to them about parenting and validation along with assurance that their children enjoy what they are doing in music therapy, that it is more than another “work” related therapy. I try to accommodate them as much as I can.

I mostly think in terms of the child, then the family. But I keep hearing the term “community” come up in “Sprouting Melodies” forums so I may want to start thinking about this in different terms. There is a loose-knit community of parents and therapists at this clinic, but I don’t think that the concept of community is stressed here. I may want to use Sprouting Melodies to develop a program closer to my home and try to develop a sense of community there. I have never been one to think about the larger community and how my work could fit into that community. I am looking forward to reading other posts about the needs of community.

[Rebecca Woodruff]

As of right now I am not working as a music therapist but I am working with families in the community as a piano teacher. I work with families to meet their needs as best I can. The needs of families are as unique as the families themselves. I have two families with a child with special needs, another where both parents are doctors and extremely busy, other that home-school. I have found one of the best ways to meet their needs is to be flexible in scheduling and how I present materials.

[Shelly Peterson]

The needs of the families in my area vary…we have many refuges that need the basics and to learn English as well as the cultural differences in raising children, we have many affluent areas in which families may need to just take time out and spend quality time with their children, we have military families with their own unique situations and needs as well as a VA hospital, we have urban families that have low income and we have a diverse cultural background.
All in all, I think that with these varying needs, families need time together to bond as well as opportunities to meet others for support and education regarding child development. Many parents think of children as mini adults which they are not. Sharing information and education about child development will only give them more tools to be successful in raising happy and healthy children.
I second the support and validation of the time and efforts they have already put into parenthood that Nicole mentioned!

[Kate Potrykus]

The needs of my community, overall, differ greatly. Families seem to be actively seeking out new social groups to join and be a part of. There is a group of families with children with special needs that don’t seem to have as many opportunities to be a part of social community groups. There are a lot of families that work for the government and many children move in and out of the local school system because their parents are in the military and foreign service.

The needs of the families I currently work with vary as well. For some, their child has aged out of the school system but is still looking for something meaningful to do with their day. Parents of these children are looking for an activity that can be engaging and fun, but will also allow for their child to develop or maintain their skills. For some other families, music therapy is one of the many therapies their child receives in order to help support their development. Families are hoping that these therapies with boost their child’s development so that they are able to function in the community more independently.

[Marcie Hernandez, MT-BC]

I live in an area where music therapy is still very much an emerging field, and my colleagues and I have done A LOT of advocacy for ourselves and our profession. That said, I see a need in my community for an early childhood music program, such as this one, to help validate, educate and encourage parents to engage musically with their children. We also have a large refugee community in our area, primarily people from Somalia, Bhutan and Burma. I see a great need within these communities for early childhood programs that would help both the children and parents feel like they are a welcomed part of the greater community.

[Nicole Drozd]

Marcie Hernandez and Shelly Peterson- Are you considering reaching out to the refugee groups in your area? I know one or two music therapists on Music Therapists Unite! FB group have mentioned that they plan on reaching out and I am really curious how one goes about it. I would really love to hear more about your efforts to provide services to this population if you plan on doing so!

[Johanna Horn]

What are the needs of the families you work with? What are the needs of your community? Share with the board how your families and communities might be unique.

I think the needs of the families that I work with differ significantly, but there are some common needs. At my preschool job, the parents/families want a safe, fun and enriching environment. The school I work at is very big on education and challenging children to their full potential. There are so many times when the parents do not read the child’s daily sheet to see exactly what their child is learning in music class, therefore music may appear to be secondary to the education part of their day.

With my clients through Capital Music Therapy Services, the parents want to provide their children with love and support through music. I see one family currently, but I see all three children in the family. Each child is currently demonstrating various challenges and they are seeking assistance with that. For example, one child has recently displayed some learning disabilities and has been assessed as reading on a pre-kindergarten level when he is in second grade. The family has been working with the school and the school’s reading specialist. I use this as one of my goal areas and I incorporate reading into our sessions. The family wants music therapy to be an outlet for expression, as well as support for other therapies/activities the children are enrolled in.

[Alexis Ramagnano]

I do not work with children and their families currently. However, as a parent myself, I can say that every family benefits from interacting with other families in their community, every family appreciates when a knowledgeable person can offer support or guidance, every family is receptive to learning new tools to help their family grow and develop as a unit. I imagine these these are some of the needs I will encounter once I get started working with families.

[Daniel Henry]

I feel that the needs of families really vary a lot from one family to the next. Some needs that I have noticed and do my best to meet in my music therapy sessions are:
-A need for community. I think that having the support of a community, especially one with other families who are in similar life stages/ situations, can be a great help for families.
-A need for expression and an outlet for their child.
-A need for affirmation. I am not a parent, but speaking to parents I think it can be a real comfort to hear encouragement and affirmation. I think in MT we can provide moments of affirmation along with tools to help them feel prepared.
-Tools for in the home. Music is a powerful tool and as MT professionals we can provide families with strategies and tools that can be of great help after the session has ended.
-A need for connection with their child. Music provides a lovely shared experience that families get to have together.

I’m sure there are plenty more, but those are some that came to mind for me.

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed reading each of your wonderful insights about your community. It is also great to see how you each are seeing your value and how much you have to offer and support your unique communities.

[Charniqua Snell]

Most of the families I work with have a child with special needs. My parents need transparency in how the music is working for their child because they are going to a lot of therapies and paying a lot of money for them! I have noticed that the more I include them in the process, they are more excited about it and so are their children. Someone mentioned this earlier, but I have also have some clients who have aged out of the school system. Their caregivers need something that will offer stimulation and therapy for their child to mature or maintain their skills. Music therapy is perfect for this!

The needs of my community are similar to the needs of my individual families. I think the biggest benefit would be the support a group like Sprouting melodies could provide. Not only from the Music Therapist but also from the other families participating.

[Elizabeth Carras]

The biggest need for the families I have worked with is the creation, through the early childhood music classes, of a network of parents and families whose children are in similar stages of development – they can come to class and share, oh, my child does the same thing, here is a way we approach this at home. We already know that singing and making music together creates a bonding experience, which I think makes it easier to set up those mutually supportive relationships between families. Yes the music therapist can offer education and knowledge of how and why interventions work for child development, but ultimately each parent is the expert on their own kid. So these classes are really a gathering of top experts on each child, and sharing that wealth of information is incredible.

[Christina Bass]

I think the biggest need for families in my community, and probably most communities around the world, is having meaningful experiences with their children. Many of the families in my community that I interact with seem to have very busy and hectic lives and tend to rely on technology to keep their children busy. A music based program would be so beneficial to help create these meaningful experiences and bonding with their children that they can transfer to their home life as well.

[Flora Whitmore]

The two biggest needs in my community are accessible, fun, enriching and affordable opportunities for young children who are not yet in school and their families and support for families with young children with higher developmental needs or delays. The community I serve here is small, with many low income families, lots of day cares, but only really limited enrichment activities at the area libraries. I talked to one parent who said “my kid is two, super smart, on the go and musical. There is nothing for his age that happens on a regular basis around here.” These populations are perfectly suited for a clinically informed early childhood program because the needs are so diverse. Many of these families are also on govn’t health care that does not cover music therapy services, but desperately want and need the support that music therapy could provide for their kids. Area mental health agencies have also expressed interest in this type of program because it is a way to provide support and enrichment to the families who need it most.

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