So hey! Janice and I indeed had lunch, and then in January I organized a meeting of music therapists in the North Texas area to hang out and talk about advocacy. What came from all of that was a HUGE amount of information on advocacy, much more than I could ever want to post here at one time.
Advocacy is not a one-time thing, it's not a just in January topic. For music therapists it comes up every time someone asks, "hey what do you do?" or "hey I know you told me before what you do, but what do you actually, like, do?" and that's the good news: Music therapy advocacy is for everyone! Even if you're reading this and you're not a music therapist, hopefully this and other blogs can give you an understanding of what it is we do as music therapists, and you can join in spreading the good word of the awesome work we do.
It is an incredible time to be a music therapist - between the continuous news coverage we get thanks to the good work that so many are doing around the nation (see here, here, and here), and the gorgeous Oliver Sacks and his movie The Music Never Stopped last year, and not to mention all the cool stuff that comes when neuroscientists and music therapists get together. Advocacy is talking about all that right there - finding a common language to communicate to other people what it's all about.
If you ARE a music therapist, then you know the other ways to advocate for our profession - present at conferences, maintain your MTBC, be a good example of a music therapist, hop on social networking and sing the praises of the work we do, and present at career day (bonus points for it being K-5th grade class because OH the thank you notes are glorious). That right there is enough for me right now - I'm not even doing all of the above yet and when you're early on in your music therapy career, that's great! I have such an appreciation for the music therapists who write to Congress and get cozy with the district representatives and jump up when there is a call to action. My goal is to eventually get there, and I have so much learning to do about that deep advocacy.
It all boils down to how one represents themselves as a music therapist. Advocacy helps us as music therapists improve our game personally and professionally, and help each other along the way.
