Italian guidance on Dementia Day Care Centres: A position paper

Dementia Day Care Centres (DDCCs) are defined as services providing care and rehabilitation to people with dementia associated with behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD) in a semi-residential setting. According to available evidence, DDCCs may decrease BPSD, depressive symptoms and caregiver burden. The present position paper reports a consensus of Italian experts of different disciplines regarding DDCCs and includes recommendations about architectural features, requirements of personnel, psychosocial interventions, management of psychoactive drug treatment, prevention and care of geriatric syndromes, and support to family caregivers. DDCCs architectural features should follow specific criteria and address specific needs of people with dementia, supporting independence, safety, and comfort. Staffing should be adequate in size and competence and should be able to implement psychosocial interventions, especially focused on BPSD. Individualized care plan should include prevention and treatment of geriatric syndromes, a targeted vaccination plan for infectious diseases including COVID-19, and adjustment of psychotropic drug treatment, all in cooperation with the general practitioner. Informal caregivers should be involved in the focus of intervention, with the aim of reducing assistance burden and promoting the adaptation to the ever-changing relationship with the patient.

Anti-oppressive pedagogy as an opportunity for consciousness raising in the music therapy profession: A critical disability studies perspective

In pedagogic literature informed by critical disability studies, academia is widely cited as an ableist institution: the training ground for the professions of normalcy. Music therapy could readily be complicit in this normalising discourse with its potential to pathologise participants and to maintain a strict ‘normative divide’, between professionals it trains and participants who engage with its provision. Activists, advocates and disabled therapists have posed a welcome challenge to this positioning in recent publications, but the pedagogical dimensions of music therapy training in this area have received less attention. The emerging signature pedagogy of music therapy and its omissions will be considered, which may explain the need for an increased social justice focus in music therapy curricula. This article considers the potential of applying Kumashiro’s typologies of anti-oppressive education in music therapy training: problematising existing pedagogies and critically reflecting upon the potential of a social justice informed curriculum. These approaches have the potential to reframe Otherness by acknowledging expertise in lived experience. Through introducing these frameworks for socially just, anti-oppressive pedagogies, this article invites consciousness raising in music therapy pedagogy through engagement with critical disability studies theory and philosophy.

A critical reflection on the Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency for music therapists: A critical disability studies perspective

This article takes the theoretical and philosophical lens of critical disability studies to critically reflect on the Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency for Arts Therapists. The discipline of critical disability studies, evolving from disability studies and the disability rights movement, is initially defined before multiple paradigms of disability are introduced as central tenets of these disciplines. The relationship between critical disability studies and music therapy is explored, with reference to seminal publications and the perceptions of music therapy within them. The Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency are then taken as a source of reflection to attempt to understand the perpetuation of medicalised perspectives in the profession and the potential friction between critical disability studies and music therapy. A selection of the Standards of Proficiency are analysed according to distinct paradigms of disability. Questions are posed to interrogate and contextualise the standards in relation to critical disability studies philosophy. From this critical reflection, a discussion emerges which reflects on the reach of these professional standards and how they might contribute to a continuing, outdated expert-model of music therapy in the United Kingdom. The article concludes by drawing these threads together in a series of recommendations to educators, practitioners and the wider profession.

Understanding the present, re-visioning the future: An initial mapping of music therapists in the United Kingdom

Music therapy is a small, but evolving profession. Numbers of music therapists are increasing, yet little is known regarding the workforce and its employment characteristics. To understand the current profile of the music therapy workforce in the United Kingdom (UK), the British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT) commissioned a national survey of its membership. This survey explores the profile of the UK music therapy workforce in terms of demographics, training and employment characteristics. An online survey was circulated to all BAMT members. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of open-ended responses. A total of 374 therapists responded (44% response rate). Following demographic information (including age, nationality and training background), we focus on employment characteristics such as income, types of work, settings, clients and age groups. Supervision and clinical fees are considered as well as commissioning and funding of self-employed and employed music therapy work. As an initial mapping of the current UK workforce, this study offers a pragmatic platform to consider development and strategic priorities and thus to re-vision the future of music therapy in the country. Potential implications for the international music therapy community are also discussed.