A Sneak Peek Into A Friday Intern Meeting

This Friday, we decided to give you an invitation to check out what's it like to be an intern in our Friday meetings. Our internship director and department head, Amber Weldon-Stephens, begins meeting with the interns at 1pm to allow small group time to gather before the other fifteen therapists join as well. This small group time was a direct result of requests from previous interns to have a smaller setting to ask questions, as meeting with sixteen music therapists can be a little intimidating. 

As a group, various topics are discussed throughout the meeting such as intern assignments that are upcoming, data collection, and reminders for the therapists to complete evaluations on intern performance, to name a few. These are all skills any music therapy student is developing as they finish their journey to becoming professionals. We also discuss current events happening in the music therapy world/our school calendar for students and professionals alike. 

Every time we gather with our interns, we purposefully take the time to review different times of research applicable or related to music therapy to stay relevant in research. This meeting Kevin Middlebrooks was chosen to pick an article for review. He sent out a research article called "It's...Complicated - A Theoretical Model of Music-Induced Harm" written by three university professors.To give a quick summary, this article explored how music can be invasive to different populations when certain factors are taking into consideration, and how music therapists are properly trained to avoid those uncomfortable and harming situations. Check out the 2020 Journal of Music Therapy for more information and to read the article.

After the article review, Shreya and Hannah each shared a musical intervention that they have used with their music therapy groups that was successful. Sharing ideas and successful music experiences is such an important component to thriving as music therapy professionals. We try to be intentional about practicing important skills to further our interns' knowledge, so the activity share led into our "Test Time" where we review practice questions from our board certification exam, go over some technology tips for optimal success within the classroom, and talk about some important self care tips which in this school year is more important than ever. Lastly, we ended this meeting with some tips for success in the middle and high school classroom. Thanks for joining us and taking a sneak peek into an intern meeting!