Modest beginnings

As many of you will know, our origins lie in the orphanages of Romania. In the past 30 years it is a country transformed, bearing little resemblance to its former self. But to understand what this transformation has enabled for us, I’d like to take you back in time to when our director, Alexia volunteered there in 1992. The country was still in a state of recovery and reform following the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. At the time, there was societal stigma around disability and a paucity of services or support available to families. An estimated 100,000 children with disabilities lived in orphanages. The majority were underfunded and ill-equipped to provide appropriate levels of care.

Despite the challenges they faced, it was clear to Alexia that local caregivers were eager for training to improve care. She saw how music proved to be a powerful tool to help people to connect and add meaning to difficult lives. She saw it inspire them. 

Alexia set up the charity and developed a training model. Two volunteers (one of whom was always a music therapist) would deliver the training on-site over six weeks. At first the project team would show how music could be used. Over the course of each project, they would hand over ownership of music sessions to care staff. By the end of the project, caregivers had the confidence and resources to run musical activities independently.

Our beginnings were modest. A single project delivered in Romania in 1995, followed by another in 1996. But by 2006, we had reached a further 18 care settings across the country. We trained over 140 caregivers, creating opportunities for more than 3,500 children and adults to access music as part of their care.

Word spreads

As our reputation for impactful, sustainable projects grew, so did the number of requests for projects. The nature of these requests was changing, too. During this time there was a national drive in Romania to close the kind of large-scale institutions that were so prevalent in the 1990s. 

Other NGOs played a significant part in this deinstitutionalisation, where children with disabilities were reintegrated with their families. There was huge investment in supporting families to prevent the abandonment of children, an issue rooted in complex socio-economic issues alongside stigma.

The re-shaped care system introduced smaller scale care settings in place of large institutions. These smaller settings did not need the level of intensive training our six-week projects provided. Yet local caregivers were still asking for our training. There were still no locally available alternatives and staff were still eager to improve care. We needed to innovate our approach.

A new approach

There was continuing demand for our training. The locally-held view was our approach still had a part to play in enhancing care provided in Romania. In response, we re-framed our approach to create a new training model: The Distance Learning Programme (DLP).

Alexia developed the programme in 2010 with music therapist Emma Lovell and other members of our Advisory Panel. It comprises: seven monthly online tutorials, one practical intensive study weekend, written assignments and a supervised practical assignment. The DLP is designed for caregivers working with young children with disabilities. It enables them to incorporate the benefits of music into what they can offer the children in their care. 

The course was founded at the same time the profile of music therapy was slowly growing in the country. This included in academic circles. 2010 also marked the launch of Romania’s first official music therapy course, with a Masters in Music Therapy founded by the University of Transylvania. However, as not all caregivers and practitioners could access the postgraduate training, our DLP sat comfortably alongside these local developments.

The first DLP was delivered in 2011. A cohort of 10 local care practitioners enrolled. Along with Advisory Panel members Emma Lovell, Sarah Hadley and Cathy Rowland, we took responsibility for delivery and moderation, with our freelance DLP Officer, Magda Pata providing translation for the course. 

The positive impact for participants was clear. They told us how they discovered strengths and abilities of the children they had not seen before, how it helped them give sense to the lives of children who had been ‘abandoned’.

Its success led to a repeat delivery the following year, with the course oversubscribed by 200%. The annual delivery of the DLP has continued since (except 2016, when we extended the programme to the Occupied Palestinian Territories).

Local leadership

The course became more established. As it did, Magda’s role expanded to include moderation of the students’ work. Then, as one of our Local Partners, Monika Szabo furthered her music practice, her involvement in the delivery of the programme grew, too.

We first met Monika in 2002 when we delivered a project at the school where she worked. Afterwards, Monika’s continued use of music and growing experience awakened her curiosity about how else music could help. She undertook training in other forms of therapy. Over time, Monika gained wider recognition. Eventually, she began to provide training and support to care settings around Romania.

Our partnership with Monika strengthened. With ongoing support, she took on more responsibility for the DLP. First delivering elements of the Intensive Study Training (the in-person component of the course) alongside Alexia, she progressed to co-lead this component of the course before beginning to moderate some of the students’ work. In 2017, the DLP in Romania was locally moderated by Monika for the first time. It is a role she continues in today. 

Monika has not been alone in her efforts to further the use of music in care in Romania. There are a growing number of pioneers for music therapy in the country. As a partner-led organisation, we have encouraged their involvement and independence. Between 2011 – 2015 our Local Partners at the Day Centre ‘Sf. Maria’ in Cluj showed their commitment by hosting the Intensive Study Weekend and sharing their experiences with the course participants. This gave the DLP a local foothold. But our ultimate vision was for it to have more stability and value for those completing the course. Our Romanian colleagues told us local accreditation was key to this. 

Pursuing partnership

Following our Partners’ insight, since 2015 we’ve been in discussion with education and training providers in a bid to establish it with an academic partner. This led to the University of Bucharest hosting the Intensive Study Weekend in 2017. The following year, hosting responsibilities were taken by the University of Transylvania with a view to potentially embedding the course within the institution’s music therapy Masters offering. For a number of different reasons, these partnerships did not move us closer to local accreditation. 

We sometimes wondered if achieving this goal was even possible, particularly as a UK-based (non-local) organisation. It was, at times, a disheartening process. As our efforts repeatedly ran aground, progress towards our goal of securing a local academic partner stalled slightly over the subsequent years. 

This was the state of affairs until – heartened by Monika’s determination and utterly led by her hard work and vision – we embarked on an application for accreditation from Colegiului Psihologilor din România (COPSI). The ambition was that the DLP would be offered within a formal partnership between Music as Therapy International and Monika’s Romanian organisation, Asociatia Sound Art E-Motion. 

Achieving accredited status would add value to all participants and attract more interest – potentially strengthening recognition of music therapy – among psychologists.

A new chapter

In June 2022, we were delighted to finally achieve our goal. For the first time, participants were awarded 50 professional credits upon completion of the course. This recognition will be available to all participants on the DLP in future years. 

We have long been mindful of promoting the autonomy of our Local Partners. With the continual progress of the role of music in care in Romania, there may well come a point where we take a step back from our involvement in the country to let our Local Partners chart their own course independently. 

For now, though, we feel an important step has been taken. The DLP can confidently continue to offer an impactful training opportunity to caregivers working with children with disabilities. And now, thanks to the efforts of so many behind the scenes, it has even greater local value to those dedicated individuals who undertake it.