The End of the Back Story

 Self portrait done entirely from musical notation!

Now, let me see where was I?

I finished my Music Therapy degree and began work as a music therapist. Over the next 10 years, I worked with at risk adolescents, people who had experienced brain injury, children and adults living with disabilities and in aged care. I certainly did a lot of different things because I was self employed for a while and took on whatever came along.

There were 2 jobs that were significant in shaping where I was heading. The first of these was my work at a special school with children who had severe and multiple disabilities. This was the job where I really came into my own as a music therapist. I began to believe in myself and I did some great work. It was a great job for me, that I remember fondly, and some of my closest friends now, I met in the course of this time in my life.

I left this job to take up a full time management position - a rarity in the music therapy field! It was a music therapy program designed to address issues of attachment and bonding for vulnerable families. This program provided support groups for families as well as giving them an opportunity to have a positive experience through music. I implemented this program in 3 states, and did heaps of travel in the three years I was there. (It was also a job in which I made some fabulous friends that I number among my close friends now) It was again a massive learning curve in terms of managing staff - of which I had 20 across the 3 states - as well as budget management, staff training, etc etc, and evaluation.

Yes evaluation, this is the job where I decided that I would like to do some more study. (Here comes that 3rd degree!) I thought I needed to broaden my experience, and looked for a long time before I found the Masters in Community Cultural Development at the faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne (now VCAM - faculty of the Victorian college of the arts and music).

I loved the study and I was exposed to all sorts of amazingly talented people in many media including puppetry, visual arts, music and dance. I had the experience of some of the things i was exposed to through my study were not gelling well with what was happening in the program I was managing, in relation to evaluation. It was an uncomfortable place to be when I realised that I was not being true to my own values in delivering some aspects of the program. As a result, I decided my masters' study would concentrate on evaluation of vulnerable populations. This is what I did, and I successfully completed this, my third degree.

SO, the rest of the long story short, I decided at the beginning of this year to finally enrol in my PhD.

I have become really interested in the process of how things happen, particularly in my work, and I would like to design tools to measure this process. At least that's what I am thinking about this early in my study. Come along for the journey, I think it could get interesting.