Music therapists have to come up with a lot of creative applications. With everything else we have to do, it sure would help to have a huge collection of planning guides!
When Music Therapy St. Pete, LLC’s founder, James Riley, was completing his master’s degree and working with a large interdisciplinary team at a regional psychiatric hospital, he led a team to build a community resource for all board-certified music therapists (MT-BCs) and anyone else interested in music therapy. The website Music Therapy Activities Wikia (MTAW) is a free, online resource designed to be community driven and open sourced. MTAW encourages everyone to contribute some new activity idea, song, etc. so as to bring together multiple perspectives and a huge collection of original ideas, tips from clinical experience, and excellent therapy resources. The vision is to create an encyclopedic collection of therapeutic music activities, indexed by Goal/Objective, Population, and Use of Music, but you can also search through iPad apps, MT blogs, and more. MTAW has been featured in regional and national presentations. It has been on social media and music therapy blogs. MusicTherapyActivities.Wikia.com was even featured in a post on Psychology Today, written by Cathy Malchiodi PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATRBC, REAT. It’s definitely been on my Bookmarks bar and frequently referenced for new session ideas, holidays songs, iPad apps, songs for lyric analysis, and sooooo much more.
So for everything that this site can offer, what does it need? Well, it needs YOU. This is just the beginning. It’s very young. The structure has been provided, but the content will continue to grow. People are searching through its pages, but we need you to take only a few extra moments to learn how easy it is to edit – or contribute new – material! It feels good. You’re already planning your own sessions, so share the love! Website managers can even collaborate with internship directors or university faculty to provide reports, allowing MTAW editing a class grade or intern project!
For any questions, ideas, or concerns becoming an active part of our music therapy activity/information sharing community, please reach out to [email protected]. THANK YOU!