Coaching the Consumer: Ethics for therapist bias, consumer empowerment and neurodiversity

5 Continuing Music Therapy Education Credits

Saturday, May 2nd, 2020 – 9am-2pm PDT

This course teaches participants to use evidence-based open loop assessments and person-centered treatment teams to collaborate with consumers on wellness recovery / neurodiversity development plans in psychiatric, school-based and medical settings.

Course Objectives

1. Participants identify two ways to develop new, open loop assessment tools. (BCD: I.B.10)
2. Participants create an environment that encourages consumers to co-develop and underwrite the treatment plan. (BCD: I.B.11 & I.D.1)
3. Participants apply three tools that help identify self-bias and limitations in interpreting assessment information. (BCD: I.C.4)
4. In addition, will understand three strategies that mitigate team bias toward consumers. (BCD: I.D. 1,2,3,4; BCD: IV.A.4 and IV.B.7,8)
5. Participants understand three tools that model music therapy treatment on the basis of neurodiversity (BCD: II.A.4 and IV.B.4) and that can inform public policy (BCD: IV.B.20). (BCD: II.A.4 and IV.B.4; BCD: IV.B.20)

Course Schedule

• 30-minute introductory lecture. 
• 1-hour deep dive lecture
  • On the backdrop of the history of neurodiversity and practical case examples, participants understand the opportunities for music therapy to fulfill positive neuro-niche construction and the importance of music expression for consumers. This includes learning three tools to self-identify bias, three ways to conduct open-loop assessments, three ways to mitigate team bias toward consumers, and three tools to model music therapy as neurodiverse intervention.

• 10-minute break
  
• 1-hour small group work
  • After this overview, participants work in small groups to review their own clinical cases and apply these learned tools to rewrite treatment plans as collaborative wellness recovery / neurodiversity development plans 

• 10-minute break
  
• One-hour large group discussion
  • Participants then present their findings in a large group setting, which leads to a large group discussion in forging public policy. Examples of empowering consumers given by the Kennedy Forum and AASPIRE will be discussed to adopt parts for participants’ practices 

• 10-minute break
• 30-minute small group setting
  • Participants will reconvene in small group settings to write a plan that introduces consumer empowerment and neurodiversity in their practice and workplace including the formation of person-centered treatment teams 
• 30 minutes large group

• The workshop concludes with participants presenting their plans to the large group

Course Description

“Nothing about us without us” has formed the disability rights movement for two decades, yet practitioners still struggle to find new procedures that see clients as equal partners. A review of one’s own bias as a therapist is the first step to structuring sessions for consumer empowerment recognizing consumers as equals in the whole spectrum of human neurodiversity.

The background of the history of neurodiversity will foster a discussion with participants on its implications for psychiatric, school-based and medical music therapy based on case examples. In small group practice sessions, participants will then review their clinical cases and forge new strategies to foster neurodiversity by creating ” positive neuro-niche” interventions. This includes re-interpreting symptomatology as attempts for solution and self-therapy.

Participants learn to include ethical considerations as everyday protocols for developing treatment plans and integrate symptomatology as part of the wellness recovery or neurodiversity development plan rather than the thing to be treated.

Large group discussions of practical examples provided by participants will highlight the ethical considerations for therapists, describe how open-loop and closed loop assessments affect treatment, and demonstrate how tools provided by the Kennedy Forum and AASPIRE can help reduce microaggression in coordinating care.

Participants will leave the workshop with a plan how to introduce neurodiverse concepts and model non-aggressive, neurodiverse behaviors in interdisciplinary teams.