Board Member Opening

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Board Member Openings: Two-year terms, voiting rights, starting 2017

ASF Current Program:

• ASF funds and facilitates group music therapy for the residents of the CLC (nursing-home) at the VA Medical Center of Atlanta.
  • Two sessions per month held on-site (3 rd floor CLC)
  • Each session averages 12 residents and lasts ~60 minutes.
  • Each session is led by a Board-Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) and has one volunteer present to assist.
  • V.A. Recreational Therapist, is present during each session.
  • Music Therapy Sessions @ VA YTD - 11 sessions (41 sessions since Oct, 2014)
    • Documentation and rosters are compiled for each session and for each resident (no names or confidential information are collected)

Supplemental programs funded and facilitated by ASF for the CLC:

• "VR at the VA" Sessions @ VA YTD - two sessions
• "Bingo Rocks" Sessions @ VA YTD - two sessions

Current Music Therapy Program Measures & Methodology

The current program at the VA CLC is a group session every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month. ASF, in partnership with Metro Music Therapy, meets with a range of 12 to 20 residents (average 14) to provide cognitive stimulation, opportunities to express emotions, improve gross motor skills and coordination, and reinforce and practice verbal communication. This is done using music to work on non-musical goals. Participants are asked to engage in whatever way they can at times moving, expressing, deciding, remembering, singing, improvising and playing with the Licensed Professional Music Therapist (LPMT). The group improves the quality of life of the participants and helps to enrich the sense of community between its members. The group is led by a Licensed Professional Music Therapist and a Professional Musician. After each session, LPMT records data on six categories from observations during group.

We currently record data on:

1 Participation

2 Level of Coherence

3 Eye Contact

4 Interaction with others

5 Affect

6 Anxiety Level

Research Sited for Current Program

• Treatment participants with brain injury demonstrated improvements in executive function (Thaut et al., 2009).
• Active engagement in music therapy reduces psychomotor agitation in patients who have severe brain injuries (Formisano et al., 2001).
• Music therapy for persons with non-fluent aphasia demonstrated singing strengthens breathing and vocal ability, improves articulation and speech prosody, and increases verbal and nonverbal communication (Tomaino, 2012). Music and language are linked in the structural patterns and brain processing in those with aphasia (Patel, 2005).
• Persons with TBI who participated in a music therapy singing intervention gained vocal range, experienced improved mood, and had better affective intonation (Baker, Wigram, & Gold, 2005).
• Music therapy in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation improved patients’ overall emotional adjustment while it decreased depression, sensation seeking, and anxiety; although control participants had better emotional adjustment and less hostility, they had decreased memory, positive affect, and sensation-seeking behaviors (Thaut et al., 2009).

Additional Research:

http://www.musictherapy.org/assets/1/7/MusicTherapyMilitaryPops_2014.pdf

Organization’s Staff Size: 4

Organization’s Annual Budget: $15,000

Year the organization was founded: 2014

About the Board of Directors

(Objectives for new and current Board Members)

1. Community Visibility - ASF needs to increase its mindshare within the community.

2. Evolution of Programming - ASF has an opportunity to better "package" the program we have today in order to help more Veterans. Our results are powerful but our positioning in the greater community needs work.

3. Fundraising - ASF has many fundraising opportunities that need to be better leveraged.

4. Social Media Support

What is your current board size?

3

How many new board members are you seeking?

3

What is the minimum or average financial contribution expected of board members?

$500 annually

How often does the board meet?

ASF’s board meets once a year, face to face, in Atlanta

Note - Regular, monthly communications are emailed out to all board members. Also, if the board members are local to Atlanta, they are welcome to observe our sessions at the VA.

Are members expected to participate in committees? What is the time commitment for that?

We do not have committees yet. The work load of each board member will be no more than two hours per week.

Estimated total time commitment required:

See above

Length of term of board service:

Two years starting 1/1/17

Additional Information

Will the board face any special circumstances in the next year or two (endowment campaigns, executive transitions, etc.)?

No

Is there any additional information you would like to provide?

We are new nonprofit with much potential. An ideal board member is one that is looking for a "ground floor" opportunity. Currently there are no Music Therapists at the VA Medical Center in Atlanta even though that facility administers healthcare to thousands of Veterans. Said another way, there is virtually an unlimited opportunity to help our Veterans with Music Therapy.