My hope in sharing this intervention with you is that you will be inspired to find ways to be trauma-informed in your sessions, especially as you address mental health concerns. I continue to see younger and younger children with emerging mental health challenges, and I think this trend will continue in the months and possibly years to come. This creates even more of a need to consider the client’s experience and perspective as it relates to a sense of safety in the session and in their relationship with their music therapist.

In this episode we sit down with Elizabeth Shain, MT-BC, NICU-MT to speak about Trauma Stewardship. This is of paramount importance in today’s society. It is an in depth discussion on caring for ourselves as we care for others.

In this episode I sought out to gather specific music strategies for “trauma-informed care”.....but you know what I found. EVERYTHING! I found every kind and type of intervention. To summarize the techniques being used in trauma-informed care would be a review of what interventions a music therapist can do.

I like sets of 3 so the formula we will use for this second half is 1) Awareness 2) Learning and 3) Intention. The first step in implementing effective trauma-informed care is awareness. This part is what we’ve already addressed. Awareness of the prevalence of trauma and awareness of those three main factors of predictability, connection and learning social and emotional skills. Now comes learning! This is where you look at effective strategies that can help in combating the effects of trauma for your clients, students and children.

This is the place where we as music therapists and other creative therapists come in. The unique nature of music and other creative arts experiences provide a space for this consistent and predictable environment, positive connection to others and awareness and learning of social and emotional skills and regulation.