BY JESSIE WANG, LEAD WRITER (COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL AWARENESS)
There’s no doubt that frontline workers have been our heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the healthcare industry, these workers are usually seen to encompass the doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals who work with some of society’s most vulnerable.
But many of us in the music community also recognise the transformative power of music – including the way it can be used as therapy for mental and physical health. Music can help to heal those in hospital, be there when families are going through tough times, and even a CD in the background can have calming effects.
So when the New South Wales Ministry of Health nominated Matt Laffan, a music therapist, for its Public Health Pandemic Response Award, it represented a huge push for people to start including music therapy into conversations around necessary and allied health services.
We chat with Matt, award nominee and music therapist from Noro Music Therapy, about his role during the pandemic – and what this role may look like in the future.
Hi Matt. First of all, congratulations on making it to the finals of the NSW Ministry of Health Public Health Pandemic Response Award! We will get to talking about your role in the pandemic shortly, but first of all, tell us about your job as a music therapist.
Hi Jessie, thanks so much. This is a question I get asked fairly frequently! As a Registered Music Therapist, I use music-based interventions to support people to improve their health, functional skills, and wellbeing. They generally come to us with their own set of functional goals, and we create structured programs to help achieve them.
What made you decide to become a music therapist?
I was studying music at university, and wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do next. I didn’t have a passion for teaching, so I did some research and found something called music therapy – it seemed to be right up my alley. So I volunteered at a local hospital in Broadmeadows in Melbourne, playing music to patients in the palliative care ward as a bit of an introduction for myself.
While this wasn’t music therapy per se, it did give me a chance to see the impact music could have on individuals, particularly in end-of-life care.
What is something about music therapy that people might not know?
RMTs are allied health professionals who engage in evidence-based practice to meet and document functional outcomes for our clients.
Where do you work and what populations do you work with?
At Noro Music Therapy, we’re lucky enough to work with a wide range of people – our youngest client is 2 years old, and our oldest is 102!
We work in a range of settings, such as aged care homes, early childhood centres, hospitals, schools, and of course in our four clinics around Sydney. We also run a mental health support program called Guitars, specifically designed for returned service veterans and first responders who have experienced trauma.
For me personally, a lot of my clinic load is working with individuals with autism, as well as people who have been diagnosed with acquired brain injuries.
Many of our readers are in the music community already, so it’s likely they have either read or heard about music therapy before. However, it can be ambiguous what you do in a session. Can you share with us how a session might be planned, and how would it run?
Our sessions are centred around a client and their outcomes, so one session can often look completely different to the next. For instance, I work with a 15-year-old girl with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, who is non-verbal, and has very limited social and communication skills. Sessions with her are completely focused on engaging her in the music, and attempting to foster some level of interaction between the client and the therapist.
Playing music with someone requires many of the same skills as having a conversation – waiting, listening, turn-taking, and responding. For someone with limited ability to socialise and communicate with their peers, playing music together can exercise some of these skills in a way that they have much more difficulty accessing outside of music.
To give an example of another session, I work with a 45-year-old man with an acquired brain injury that has caused him to lose the power of speech, as well as severely limit the way he can use his arms and legs. He uses a communication device that tracks his eye movements to read messages in order to communicate with those around him. This is a fantastic example of technology being used to improve a client’s level of function. However, as it is fairly new to him, it is very slow going and takes a while to type messages out.
So that’s where we come in!
This client also happens to love ‘90s hip hop. So, in order to improve the speed in which he can use his communication device, sessions are spent creating remixes to his favourite Tupac and Biggie tracks within Logic Pro X.
Musical elements such as tempo, dynamics, instrumentation, and loops are all chosen through his eye gaze communication device, with the music acting as the vehicle to motivate him to improve the speed at which he can use it.
Amazing. So it’s understandable you were nominated for the Public Health Pandemic Response Awards. What was your role in the pandemic?
Like many other businesses, the pandemic impacted us in a way we didn’t expect, and we had to transition our entire client base onto telehealth overnight. This included clients in our clinics, as well as the people we see in outreach programs, such as residents in aged care homes and participants in our Guitars program.
My role in the pandemic response was to work with our team of therapists to create a telehealth program that was accessible to our clients and their families. While telehealth was something we’ve always wanted to do, it had always been in the back of our minds rather than a priority. Then COVID-19 hit, and we had to pivot on the spot and make it happen.
A key part of this was equipping parents and carers with the knowledge and tools to access telehealth services easily and quickly. Given that many of our clients require a large degree of assistance to take part in sessions, engaging parents and carers to essentially co-facilitate a session in a meaningful way was paramount to the success of our telehealth program.
What did you learn during this pandemic and the period of telehealth?
I feel like we learnt lots! We knew that not being able to come into face-to-face sessions would have an impact on our clients, but the biggest thing that we didn’t expect was the impact it had on parents. Coming in for a weekly session with the therapist, as well as having a conversation with other families in the foyer, was such a big part of the social aspect of parents’ week. Being able to sit down for half an hour to relax, and have a coffee as a bit of respite, was also an aspect that cannot be undervalued.
The parents and carers of our clients work very hard for their children, so to be able to have face-to-face sessions back in the clinic is a huge positive.
How is music therapy looking like in 2021, now that things are more-or-less returning to normal?
We expect 2021 to be a dynamic year in the sense that so many things are still expected to change.
Following health guidelines, such as extra cleaning and social distancing, will be key to us being able to remain open and provide the best service for our clients. However, we fully expect telehealth to be a part of our future, regardless of COVID-19. While many of our clients prefer face-to-face, some have displayed much higher levels of engagement while interacting through iPads and computers. It also provides a more accessible option for therapy if clients have trouble organising transport, or if they or family members are unwell.
One of the biggest benefits of telehealth is the ability to reach participants in rural areas, particularly aged care homes, as they may not have had any access to music therapy or music-based activities before. These are some of the most isolated members of our community, so to be able to impact their day-to-day lives from afar is a huge benefit.
It made me really happy to see that you were nominated alongside people who are considered as your ‘typical’ allied-health professionals. But I do wonder, why do you think music therapy isn’t so integrated into our healthcare system?
Research has consistently shown that a multidisciplinary, person-centred approach yields the best outcomes for healthcare. Of course, we’d love for music therapy to play a greater role in healthcare in the future, but a lot of the time we find that people are often unaware of what music therapy can provide.
For us, this just comes down to continuing to advocate for our profession, and continuing to deliver high-quality, research-based services to improve the lives and wellbeing of others.
Being nominated for this award is such a big positive for music therapy in general, as it includes us in the conversation amongst some of the more well-known allied health services such as speech and occupational therapy.
What can those of us in the music community do to better advocate for music therapy to be used across different settings?
In my mind, this question needs to be addressed from two different angles. Yes, we do need to continue to advocate for music therapy, and the arts in general. However, we also need to advocate for our clients to be able to access the services they require.
Many of our clients access our services through the NDIS, which aims to give people with disabilities and their families choice and control in pursuit of their goals. We need to continue to advocate for our clients to be provided with the independence to plan their own supports.
Being nominated for this award is a great honour, and such a great opportunity for the profession!
If you want to support Matt, you can vote for him in the People’s Choice Award.
Shout the writer a coffee?
Thanks for supporting Jessie as she volunteers her time for Australian arts journalism during COVID-19. No amount too much or little 🙂
Pay what you like securely via PayPal, 80 per cent goes to the writer and 20 per cent to our volunteer editor.
Images supplied.
