I asked some of my tweeps on twitter, “What do Music Therapists and Politicians have in common?”

I got some great responses! Here is a sampling:

“No one is quite sure what they do all day – or who pays their salaries!” From Rachelle at Soundscape Music Therapy.

“Neither worry about deficits.”From Bonnie in Ohio.

“Their good at making up things on the spot?” From Christine at Balance with Music.

Here in South Carolina, we are trying to have more in common with our state legislators. I am a member of our South Carolina State Recognition Task Force. The state task force, in collaboration with American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) and Certification Board for Music Therapists(CBMT), work towards achieving state recognition of the music therapy profession and the MT-BC credential required for competent practice. With this recognition, the ability of our clients to access music therapy services will hopefully become easier!

With that in mind, I’m very excited to tell you about an important meeting being held tomorrow. Here in Columbia, music therapists from all over the state will converge to discuss and ask questions about our quest for state recognition. We are also having two very special guests: Judy Simpson, from the AMTA, and Dena Register, from CBMT.

South Carolina’s history in our work towards recognition has been exciting! I am a relatively new member of the Task Force, so the journey has been fun for me to learn. We have several music therapists in our state that have been working on having our profession recognized for many years! Their tireless efforts are what have made our recent strides possible.

In the past year, we have seen potential legislation for licensure of music therapists read in the house. We have had the opportunity to expand our network of music therapists in the state through e-mail and phone survey. We’ve began a very important conversation amongst ourselves about the costs and benefits of licensure.

Tomorrow at our meeting, we’re going to continue our conversation about this big step forward and the potential of filing our legislation for consideration once again. We have over 50 music therapists from all over the state who have RSVP’d that they are coming! This will be the largest gathering of music therapists in this state that I have ever seen, and I couldn’t be more excited to be meeting so many new (to me) colleagues!

I’ll be sure to update next week about the meeting. Take care, and have a good weekend!