[Menvi-discuss] Looking to connect with blind music therapists

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi, all,

I'm looking to get in touch with some blind music therapists to ask
questions about my future career, and I've hit a bit of a roadblock.
I have a few contacts who are wonderful resources, and I'm on a list
serve hosted by Janet Ingbar for music therapists with visual
impairments, but I'd like to get in touch with as many blind MT-BCs as
possible and the list serve I'm on is pretty sleepy.  Often when I've
emailed with questions I haven't gotten answers from that source.

So far, I know of an MT from my own town, who I've known since I was a
kid, and I recently corresponded with another from Illinois over
email.  Other than those two people, I don't think I know of anyone
who is in the field and works around issues that arise due to not
being able to see what the clients are doing, what their facial
expressions might be, etc.

My professors and I are trying to schedule a brainstorming meeting to
sort out these issues, and to try to come up with other alternatives.
We are planning on utilizing the expertise of the people we are aware
of now, but the more suggestions I can find the more options I'll
have.  Plus, I am a little curious to see just how many blind MT-BCs
are out there.  With our professional national conference coming up in
early November, I'd love to meet up with someone if at all possible.

Another issue I'm struggling with a bit myself is how to articulate
what I think I'll need to my professors.  It is difficult because
since I don't have prior experience in this kind of course (practicums
where we're graded on how well we play, interact with clients, and how
we document clinically relevant things we notice), so it is far
different from an English class I've taken for the past 14 years where
I can tell the teacher exactly what we need to do to make everything
accessible.  Hence why I'm trying to get my professors, the MT-BCs I
know who are in the field and work around these issues, and myself to
work to find a suitable alternative together, but the issue is that I
need to convince the professors that I need to learn how to function
as a clinician without using visual ways to assess clients.  I have
some functional sight now, but I'd have to be really close to the
clients to see what they're doing or the look on their face, and I
can't always do that when working with a group of people.  More
importantly, I've never had a definitive prognosis for my condition
since there are several factors involved, and anything could happen.
We do know that it is likely at some point in my life the remaining
functional eye I have will need surgery to replace the cornea, and
then will have other problems because that's typically what happens,
and is what happened to my other eye.  I don't have any quantifiable
information on it, but the risk of retinal detachment following any
surgery on the eye is extremely high.  Therefore, I don't want my
professors to rely upon the vision I have to get the coursework done,
because I don't know if something like that will happen while I'm
still in college, or when I'm in the field as a professional, etc.
Like everything else in my education (I'm a braille reader, use a cane
pretty well, even had some training from World Access for the Blind in
the summer months while attending a music program), I think I need to
learn to do my job in a nonvisual way, so that I'm not blindsided and
unable to do it should something change.  I think anything that I am
able to document based on what I've gathered visually would be a plus,
but it shouldn't be what I rely upon.  Pardon my pun.  :)

Any suggestions on either of these issues would be really helpful.
-- 
Kaiti