Holiday Greetings

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Dr. Gene Ann Behrens
Regional Liaison for North America
Contact: northamerica@wfmt.info[/caption]

Holiday greetings to all who will honor so many different celebrations over the next couple of months!

Many music therapists are back from the AMTA National Conference in San Diego, California, USA on November 11-15, where I was able to meet Guylaine Vaillancourt, the President of the Canadian Association for Music Therapy. I also was able to talk with some of the commissioners and liaisons from other countries during our annual WFMT meeting. What a wonderful group of hard working people with great ideas!

I would like to highlight a few upcoming projects from our recent WFMT meeting:

1. a)Start your plans to attend the next World Music Therapy Congress in Seoul, Korea, July 5-9, 2011. Watch for important information on the WFMT site:https://www.wfmt.info//WFMT/World_Congress_2011.html
2. b)Students – there are several student scholarships now available to assist you in attending the World Music Therapy Congress in Seoul, South Korea:https://www.wfmt.info//WFMT/World_Congress_2011.html.
3. c)Stay tuned for a growing number of fact sheets that will be coming about music therapy in various countries across the world.
4. d)Continue to check the https://www.wfmt.info//WFMT/Home.html website for new information about music therapy across the world.

As the North American Liaison, I continue to learn about similarities among music therapists in Canada and the United States. Both have similarly developed training and certification programs. In Canada, undergraduate students complete their coursework and 1000 hours of clinical training; in the United States, undergraduate students complete 1200 hours of clinical experience in addition to their coursework. Music therapists in both countries also work from a range of psychological and methodological perspectives. A list of the schools and internship sites are now available at https://www.wfmt.info//WFMT/Regional_Information.html.

Other important dates in 2010: Check out the upcoming AMTA regional conferences this spring (links at http://www.musictherapy.org/regions.html) and the Canadian Music Therapy Conference May 12-15 in Delta Halifax, Nova Scotia at http://www.musictherapy.ca/conference.htm.

Gene Ann Behrens

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