Music Therapy Advocacy: “Hearing” from Masonic Village

About the Author: Ann Dinsmore is the director of music therapy at the Masonic Village at Elizabethtown.

More than 700 music therapists and students gathered in Harrisburg last week for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Music Therapy Association Conference. The largest region of AMTA, the Mid-Atlantic includes Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., but it was the Pennsylvanians who made the most “noise.”

On Thursday, March 17, more than 200 attendees staged another “Capitol Hill Day,” visiting legislators to lobby for House Bill 1438 and Senate Bill 947, which support music therapy licensure. This is the same experience in which the Masonic Village Music Therapy Department participated in October 2015 (read about it in a previous article: https://masonicvillages.org/advocating-for-music-therapy/).

Cindy Phillips, executive director; Gary Wylde, director of resident services; and I attended an Advocacy Breakfast on Friday, March 18.  Cindy and I spoke to the group of 40 legislators, local continuing care retirement community (CCRC) administrators, AMTA national and regional officers and members of the state licensing committee about the benefits of a board-certified music therapy program for CCRC residents. Masonic Villages employs six board-certified music therapists (in Elizabethtown and Sewickley), plus three contract music therapists (in Lafayette Hill, Warminster and Sewickley), making it one of the largest employers of music therapists in Pennsylvania.

A Public Hearing is scheduled with the Licensure Board today at 9 a.m., during which music therapists, family members and other supporters will testify about the need for licensure to protect clients, ensure credentialed professionals and standardize music therapy services county to county.  Let’s hope they hear us loud and clear!