Music Therapy Works / Additional &Training Services / Adoption and Fostering

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Additional & Training Services

ADOPTION AND FOSTERING

Additional & Training Services

ADOPTION AND FOSTERING

Music therapy can support and improve parent/carer-child relations. Through musical play, positive experiences can be created allowing both parent/carer and child to interact in new and engaging ways, leading to strengthened relationships.

The music therapist works with the family to promote:

Positive attachments
Harmonious communication skills
Innovative and adaptive ways of enhancing parent-child
Connections
Extended social play skills
Positive shared experiences

By providing opportunities for bonding and developing attachment between children and their caregivers, music therapy can offer a safe, secure and resourceful environment in which relationships can be developed, improved and explored.

What will happen in a music therapy session?

The music therapist will focus on joint music-making and listening between parent/carer and child with a goal of encouraging and supporting communication, improving relationships and increasing positive experiences through collaborative working. There will be opportunities to sing, play and

listen to live music in a choice of regular or one-off sessions agreed with the parent/carer.

Well-known pieces and pre-recorded music may be used but often free improvisation is a key element. In family music therapy, clients are encouraged to use percussion and other instruments in order to explore the world of sound and experience a different way of communicating with each other (mainly non-verbal). The music therapist supports the family’s sounds through improvising with them.

Musical ability is not relevant as all sounds are incorporated within the music they make together.

The confidence and engagement this engenders means that over time relationships can evolve safely and positively in a new context which encourages emotions to be expressed and obstacles or more challenging issues to be explored within a non-verbal environment. Over time these new ways of relating and shared experiences will carry on beyond the therapy room and into the home.

Therapeutic aims

Music therapy aims to offer the family an opportunity to engage in an intervention that may facilitate, support and engender:

positive, shared, spontaneous, playful and creative experiences in the carer/parent- child relationship
increased and augmented awareness of each other
improved empathic responses towards carers/parents
increased empowerment of parents/carers to limit behaviours, celebrate positive interactions and
support parent/carer-child attunement
a space for the child to understand their emotions through music
opportunities for the family to share a safe and family-centred environment and strengthen their reciprocal communication skills through turn-taking, imitation, reflection, listening, duets, songs, dance and movement

Examples of outcomes

Using the above aims or others agreed before or during the assessment period, music therapy can create the safest of spaces that can invoke change wherever possible. The following outcomes are taken from a recent music therapy report where an intervention plan was delivered to a post-adoptive family. During music therapy, the child was able to:

demonstrate enthusiasm and delight in playing music with his carers, deepening the connection and attunement between them all
sit closer and in parallel to carers than usual especially at the large table drum, creating a sense of togetherness and working towards common goals
find instruments for carers to play, offering an experience of autonomy and positive choice-making opportunities
sing improvised songs to include all members of the family, bringing a cohesiveness and turn-taking experience to the dynamic

A post-adoption / foster care music therapy programme has been cited as a key factor in enabling families to remain together. It can allow access to a provision where the processing of difficult and traumatic experiences can be safely explored whilst healthy bonds are further developed within the family.

For further information please contact mtwchiefexec@gmail.com

“Her relationship with the music therapist is the only remaining relationship in my mother’s life. She glows after her sessions.”

Daughter of an elderly MTW client with dementia

FabuFit
"As an MTW approved supervisor, I have witnessed MTW MTs encouraging, reflecting and reaching deeply held feelings that may not have otherwise ever have been expressed or heard. They then use these observations and information to determine the best way forward for a successful therapeutic process."

Dr Teresa Madurai, Clinical Psychologist, University of Birmingham

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“(Music Therapy) gives all of the children a space to express themselves. We notice a change in them whilst in the sessions. We also notice that they come back to class calmer.”

Rigby Hall School, Bromsgrove

YesSuits
“Due to music therapy... we have noticed that the school is a calmer place to be. We have also noticed that there has been an increase in turn-taking skills, participation and attention / concentration skills.”

Dame Ellen Pinsent School Birmingham

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“Music allows us to meet clients at these moments where there are no words. It provides a language which the music therapist uses to allow each individual to process and move through even the most unbearable experiences.”

Eleanor Tingle, MTW Chief Exec

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"I am glad that I am alive...joyful in the moment...there was something about music that enclosed me."

Martha, a cancer patient describing her experience of Music Therapy

MashIt
"This specialist support [music therapy] has contributed to a reduction in the number of student behavioural incidents and to improvements in the levels of students’ confidence and skills development.”

OFSTED inspection report, Trinity Specialist College

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“Her relationship with the music therapist is the only remaining relationship in my mother’s life. She glows after her sessions.”

"As an MTW approved supervisor, I have witnessed MTW MTs encouraging, reflecting and reaching deeply held feelings that may not have otherwise ever have been expressed or heard. They then use these observations and information to determine the best way forward for a successful therapeutic process."

“(Music Therapy) gives all of the children a space to express themselves. We notice a change in them whilst in the sessions. We also notice that they come back to class calmer.”

“Due to music therapy... we have noticed that the school is a calmer place to be. We have also noticed that there has been an increase in turn-taking skills, participation and attention / concentration skills.”

“Music allows us to meet clients at these moments where there are no words. It provides a language which the music therapist uses to allow each individual to process and move through even the most unbearable experiences.”

"I am glad that I am alive...joyful in the moment...there was something about music that enclosed me."

"This specialist support [music therapy] has contributed to a reduction in the number of student behavioural incidents and to improvements in the levels of students’ confidence and skills development.”

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