Update - birthday, Payson, DDD/DES, carrots

As I am currently going on Day 3 of living with a broken water heater, overcoming a complicated week and coming down with another cold Saturday night, I decided that this gives me a great opportunity to catch up on my blog.

As I have been sipping hot lemon drink, savoring comforting mung beans, and homemade chicken and rice soup, I have been able to think of the many blessings that have come to my life despite my thinking that life has been in chaos.

This week has been a difficult week for me to experience for some reason. Friday with the water heater breaking and other things occuring, I decided that I needed a day off. I was blessed with all my clients being able to switch their session times from Friday to Saturday. After getting in a warm shower at my parent's home, I drove up to Payson area (about an hour away). I realized how much I miss being in the mountains and just away from city life. It was the break I needed - to just take a break, listen to old, fun traveling music (Backstreet Boys are still the great!), and being amongst trees and mountains. I had told my friend I was going up there and they told me that I wouldn't be able to see any snow. There is something amazing about just driving without a specific destination. Sometimes you go where you don't realize you are going, but it's good to go. Not realizing I missed my last destination (town was smaller than I remembered), I was able to drive where there was snow on the sides. It was so beautiful!... ok this picture doesn't have much snow, but it was the only place I could pull off to take the picture. There were some areas with a lot more snow on the sides... but then this is Arizona...
Friday night I received a call from my Supervisor who told me that DDD/DES was court-orderd that they are not allowed to make the cuts that they did in March. It was good to heart that my paycheck won't get cut 55%. Thank you to everyone who wrote, called and allowed themselves to be educated on what has been going on with the government and those dealing with developmental disabilities.

A few weeks ago I celebrated my 30th Birthday! It was a really nice day. The day before, my family surprised me with a cake and song:) The first picture of this blog is one that was given to me of that night. It looks like the cake is just fire... it's way cool!

I didn't really do much for my birthday, but it was nice to keep it simple. That is what I was needing at that time. My sister sent me a list of all the free things you can do on your birthday. It would have been fun to take the day off work and just do free things, but that wasn't an option. I did discover a new favorite restaurant "Jim's FarmGrill." It's in Gilbert. They grow their own organic vegetables/fruits and the prices are reasonable. If you go there on your birthday they give you $10 off your meal.
I have also discovered a new snack I make regularly. I place carrots and broccoli in a glass dish. I pour a bit of lemon juice and garlic on top and then cook it in the over for about 30 minutes. It's been the perfect pick me up snack during work. I tried to take a picture of it, but it didn't turn out the way I was hoping...

Music Therapy in Arizona

It seems that part of my life's work is to provide relief and assistance to others through the use of music. As a music therapist, I love what I do, and am continually learning how music can be used to help people in areas of their lives where no other resource has been able to reach them. I have been blessed to work with many different clientele using music therapy and can see how it can bring relief to everyone.

The biggest question I tend to get is "what is music therapy?" Many times people think that it is just 'playing music, helping people "feel good."' In reality, it's a way to help people accomplish goals. A way to assist others towards becoming more whole as it addresses physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals of all ages. So through unique interventions I use music to help with non music goals. Within my groups you may see us writing songs, analyzing music, drumming, moving to music, singing, playing insruments, etc. Believe me, there is a whole lot more of what goes on in the session than what you may see... as it tends to look like I am just playing music to help people "feel good."

Last Friday the Department of Economic Security/ Division of Developmental Disabilities (DES/DDD) announced that all qualified vendors and providers (agencies and therapists) contracted with DDD are required to take a 10% pay cut effective March 1, 2009. Due to the economic situation, I can understand this announcement, and it is not unexpected. However, DDD has unexpectedly identified two services to take an additional significant rate cuts: Habilitation - Communication (HCH) and Habilitation - Music (HAM). Music therapy rates have been cut by 55%!

Historically, DDD has made significant proposed cuts to music therapy in the past 25 years. And we as a community have been able to show how Music Therapy is needed and effective as a therapy similar to speech and occupational therapy.

We have not been able to find out why DDD has singled out Music Therapy with a larger percentage cut than the other services. Could it be that from DDD’s perspective – Music Theray is currently the fastest growing service in the state... which equals an increased cost to DDD. However, we are a cost effective service – if they don’t allow us to give service, they will have to pay more for the other services – HAB or speech, etc.

Only with the help of parents, advocates, consumers and community support have we been able to reverse these decisions in the past and maintain the quality of sevices for the children in the community.

Any support in this would be appreciative... especially if you have a loved one receiving music therapy. Things you can do:
Call the DES (Interim) Director: Linda J Blessing - 602-542-4791
Call the DDD Assistant Director: Barbara Brent - 602-542-0419
FAX a letter to DDD Assistant Directo's Office - 602-542-6870
Call the DES/DDD Condumer Advocate Office - 602-542-6857
Email a letter to DDD - DDDHotline@azdes.gov
FAX or email your state legislator.

Things you can communicate to them is:
How music therapy has addressed the needs of your child or someone you know
How it is a cost effective service
How music therapy is a unique and vital PROFESSIONAL therapy
It is an evidenced based therapy
It is NOT merely a teaching methodology

Day 138 - Monday, August 11, 2008

Interventions...

I use interventions at work to help meet the goals I have with the group. I've been getting in a rut in a sense with a few of them, where I use the same ones all the time, just rotate them frequently. This is fine as the patients enjoy them and grow through them, but it's good to do new things and explore new areas of life. I had heard about this one intervention from a fellow music therapist. I even got all the materials together about a month ago. But it was today I chose to implement it. It turned out to be a good session, and the discussions went deeper than past sessions.

Day 134 - Thursday, August 7, 2008

Tres - dos - uno - ALTO!

I started a new group at work today. To my surprise (aka... they didn't tell me beforehand), I had a patient who only spoke Spanish. My co- facilitator spoke Spanish and translated what was being said. For the majority of the session though we just drummed together. That was nice as they were able to really feel a part of the group. But I had wanted to have them feel like they were a part as well, so I asked my co- worker how to say "3-2-1 stop!" in Spanish. This was taught to me, and I ended all the group drumming's in Spanish. I realize that it is hard to break a tradition like this one. I had to concentrate the entire time I was saying it, and had to stop playing my own instrument in order to do this. Hopefully this will get easier as the group continues.

Day 131 - Monday, August 4, 2008

Odyssey House

My department at work (which consisted of me and two other people), went to Odyssey House in SLC to see how their facilities are run. While my supervisor set up this arrangement, she offered my services as a Music Therapist. I went and did a session with a group of their clients. It was a lot of fun and interesting for me, as I had no idea who I would really be working with, or even how many. We ended up having about 20 people in the room, and it turned out to be a good event for the majority. My supervisor wants to make this become a "tradition" where we visit other facilities during our preparation week, and I do a music therapy session with them.