Clinical Practicum Model: A New Idea

During the last year, I put my internship program on inactive status for a number of reasons, but that left me feeling that there was a huge void in my daily professional life. I always thrived on training interns, and I believe my clients thrived on the opportunities to meet new, enthusiastic music-therapiststo-be. As a result of this, and also because of all the changes in our AMTA training models, I began to think of alternatives for my situation. It occurred to me that I could offer a summer practicum program to undergraduates who might be looking for a more intensive experience. It was easy enough to work out the preliminaries-I got approval from my facility, then made up a flyer which I posted at our regional (MAR) conference and sent out to some colleges (for this first experience, I chose ones with whom I already had a relationship). My criteria for acceptance would be based on a phone interview with the student, a discussion with the student's major professor, and a submitted resume. I intended to keep it much simpler than the internship application process. On the flyer, I included a brief description of our facility, the promise of an interesting experience, and the request that students apply only if they had completed at least two years of college. I did not have set dates, but stated that I would determine a schedule with each student so that it worked for both of us. The first year four students applied, and I accepted all four. One had finished sophomore year, one had finished junior year, and two were equivalency students. One came for 2 weeks, two came for 3 weeks, and one came for 5 weeks. I began this program on July 1, 2002, and concluded on August 23, 2002. The second year I accepted five students and they were here, in various groupings, from May through August. (Since I originally wrote this article, I accepted one more 4-week student during the summer of 2004, but only one because I already had an intern.) Setting Up the Program Initially, this was a very challenging program to administer. My previous experience was with interns, and I had little concept of what undergraduates would present with regard to skills and maturity. I immediately discovered that there were, indeed, educational differences depending on how much schooling they had completed, but I also discovered a very significant similarity-all these students were serious, dedicated, and absorbed experiences like sponges. They had chosen to do this non-required intensive practicum; therefore, they were going to get as much out of it as possible. When setting up this program, my first task was to set my intentions. What did I expect students to gain from this experience in such a short period of time, and what could I realistically do? Ultimately, I concluded the following: * To give students a feel for what it means to be a full-time music therapist (i.e., to be immersed in music therapy and developmental disabilities all day) * To have students leave with a strengthened desire to become professional music therapists * To have students observe the MT-BC with clients with very diverse needs, skills, etc. * To teach various therapy strategies for specific client needs * To teach at least one method of collecting data based on a plan with an objective and task analysis * To have students experience at least one Interdisciplinary Team meeting * To have students gain more confidence playing guitar (traditional/folk songs) * To have students learn about other therapies (including collaboration and co-treatment) * To have students learn about assistive technology * For those students who stayed 3-5 weeks: a. The opportunity to work with one or more clients independently and to write a small case study based on that work b. To observe and assist with a music therapy assessment c. To observe other music therapists at other facilities d. …