Read All About It! The New Music Therapy Scope of Practice

Music therapists are nationally board-certified. Any music therapist you work with should have an MT-BC (“Music Therapist – Board Certified”) credential, which indicates that person has met appropriate education and training criteria, both musical and clinical.

Our certification board (appropriately named the Certification Board for Music Therapists, or CBMT) oversees our MT-BC credential. Not only are they in charge of creating and administering our national board certification exam, but they are also responsible for identifying and describing current music therapy practice. This is done every five years through a Practice Analysis Study. The latest Practice Analysis Study was completed in 2008.

The results of the 2008 Practice Analysis Study have resulted in an overhaul of our Scope of Practice (the Scope of Practice is the document that defines the procedures and actions that are permitted under our credential).

The latest Scope of Practice was announced in last week’s CBMT newsletter (You can download the article here or access it via the CBMT website). This Scope of Practice will come into effect Spring 2010.

For comparative purposes, you can download the current Scope of Practice here.

One of the biggest differences between the current and new Scope of Practice is that the musical skills section has been removed as it’s own section. Instead, necessary musical skills are interspersed appropriately between the other sections: assessment, treatment implementation, evaluation, etc.

Other than that, except for some other minor re-categorizations and updates to reflect current practice (e.g. additions of new treatment models), many of the content items are the same.

So, how does this affect you? Well…

1. If you are an educator, your students will need to learn the material outlined in this new Scope of Practice.
2. If you are a student or intern, the board-certification exam you take will be based on this new Scope of Practice.
3. If you are a clinician, any continuing education credits you take will need to start fitting within the processes and practices outlined in the Scope of Practice.
4. If you are an Approved Provider or offering a CMTE (a continuing education credit), your education materials need to fit within the new Scope of Practice.
5. If you are an internship director, your interns will need to finish your internship competent in the skills laid out in the Scope of Practice.

See a theme? Every part of our training process – from college training to internship to board certification exam to continuing education – is based on our Scope of Practice. It’s an important document for any music therapist.

Have you reviewed your Scope of Practice lately?

Tagged as: board certification, CBMT, continuing education, education, internship, music therapist