th
Proceedings of the 14 WFMT World Congress of Music Therapy July 7-12, 2014 in Vienna/Krems, Austria
challenge. Local Partners’ showed highly competent practice against both competencies relevant to a child-centred approach (73%). Musicianship: The majority of evaluated Partners’ lowest scores were against competencies which comprise “A confident use of musical skills and instruments with a focus on interpersonal connections” (42%). We do not demand prior musical training of our Local Partners. Does this limit the extent to which they can use music-making to shape the improvisation of their clients? That said, in Rwanda our volunteers saw communal music-making already embedded socially. Was this why our Partners there demonstrated highly competent music practice (98%) despite no formal training? Underpinning Theory: Our skill-sharing leaves working concepts of theories such as Rogers’s Unconditional Positive Regard and Stern’s Affect Attunement. Our Local Partners most often showed very highly competent practice (80%) against these principles. There are limitations of skillsharing with respect to broader theoretical frameworks, and consequently we accept and define limitations in the practice of our Local Partners. There is associated risk that Partners become ‘stuck’ with their clients’ difficulties and 19% of evaluated Partners
did not demonstrate adaptation of their activities in response to their clients’ changing needs over time. Emotional Depth: A lack of supervision and underpinning theory leaves us with a responsibility to ensure our Local Partners do not work at too deep a level of emotional need for safe practice. Evaluated Partners scored highly (73%) in relation to offering appropriate emotional support to their clients. Sustainable practice may limit the depth of our Partners’ work, but its impact is lasting. When evaluating our Partners’ practice as a whole, 5 demonstrated considerable competence, 10 demonstrated high competence and 6 demonstrated very high competence. Our findings also suggest our Partners stop practicing, rather than continue unsafely, if they lack competence [No evaluated Partner demonstrated less than competent practice (50%)]. Additionally, nd rd local skill-sharing has created “2 ” and “3 ” generations of practitioners. About the Authors Cathy Rowland is a music therapist and Clinical Advisor for Music as Therapy International. Alexia Quin is a music therapist and the director of Music as Therapy International.
ISSN: 1610-191X © 2014 WFMT. All rights reserved.
193