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.

[Adrienne Salmon]

The needs of my clients are so very diverse. I really consider myself to be extremely lucky, because the job that I have allows me to meet such remarkable people each with different stories. I have some young children, ages 2-5, with congenial and acquired blindness. I have some clients, ages 7-19, on the Autism Spectrum, which certainly is a broad spectrum! Some of those clients have coexisting IDD, ADHD, etc. I have adults at the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and Dementia. I have adults with various and varying levels of IDD diagnoses. I have preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, all the way through high school classes of children and young adults with any variety of diagnoses. I consider myself incredibly lucky because I really get to do so many different things on any given day, and to learn so much from so many different individuals.

[Shonda Malik]

The biggest need of the families I work with who have children with autism or other developmental needs is funding. Often the families are already spending money and time on ST, OT and PT so their willingness to even get started with trying music therapy usually relies on whether there is funding. An even bigger obstacle is that when I present the county and local grant funding options to families only a small percentage of them will actually follow through with even attempting to get the funding set-up. I think most families are overwhelmed with their busy and stressful lives and they just aren’t able to manage following through with the funding applications.

[BJ Waelz]

There are many families in my area with special needs who are unable to obtain services due to funding. The community I am serving currently is a small city trying to come back from loss of many large businesses. We have a large hispanic population that settled here for mill work or local agriculture, many of those jobs have dwindled over the past 10 years. Leaving our economic position very poor. The city is trying to make a comeback and is pushing to revitalize the uptown area, new businesses have come in to our Main Street area and larger stores and restaurants continue to pop up in our commercial areas. I feel that this growth means that there will be a growing need to serve families with babies and young children. I also feel there is need for education for parents with young children, unable to afford programs. Through sprouting melodies if I were able to grow my practice, I maybe then could offer some scholarships to help with both needs in my area.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you are all doing some amazing work helping so many individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds!

[Anonymous]

This was a duplicate post. Please ignore.

[Laura Myers]

Since I do not currently work with children, I do not have any specific examples. However, knowing my community has given me ideas of my community are. The community that I hope to serve has many challenges. High unemployment, poverty, drug problems, with a very small town feel. We are located outside of the metro area. I would think that many of these families would need support, education. As discussed in the video. They seem unsure of what to do, how to interact with their children. Many families could use somewhere to spend quality time bonding with their children, someplace free from distraction.

[Ericha Rupp]

The biggest need for the families that I work with is funding and parent education resources for the parents that have children diagnosed with a disability. The community lacks a variety of culturally diverse options and resources for families that have children diagnosed with a disability. The families that I get to work with along with the community that I work in are growing rapidly. At points I wonder if the community can keep up with the growing families to accommodate all of their needs.

[Ian Crawford]

‘Funding’ seems to be a common thread in these posts. With music therapy being an out-of-pocket service (with a few exceptions), it’s one of the biggest obstacles I come across. I also live in a culturally diverse community with a large population of a culture that traditionally does not accept autism as a legitimate disability, and even holds a certain level of shame around having a child with autism. I have not personally worked with families that have experienced this, but I’m aware that there is an ever-growing need for advocacy and parent support/education within the community.

[Kristina Rio]

Great awareness everyone! It’s important to identify the needs of the community especially in our field when we are working directly with the community. We need to be THE go to person, and a reliable resource for those who need guidance, support, and education.

Keep up the great work!

[Lysa Wright]

I’m primarily working directly with the children, and typically don’t get to meet their parents/families (I subcontract). However, the parents I meet, particularly the ones of children with special needs, tell me how much their children love music time with me and how much their child’s language is developing and how engaged they are when they hear music.

In the past, when providing child/caregiver music, typically in the summer, it seems that time was a big issue for parents. Everyone’s lives are very busy! Another is maybe lack of advertising/unclear advertising for the services. There are sometimes multiple different kinds of music groups available (maybe Kindermusic or Music Together) and parents may not know the differences, they all probably seem the same!

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

One of the things I notice here in my community, is the lack of ‘community’. Many families often feel alienated and struggle to find a place in which they feel that they truly belong. In a small, but very powerful way, we can provide that community feeling for
families.

[Author]

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