Hi, everyone. Happy Friday. Happy Valentine’s Day.
You know, I’m often asked by our supporters, “Why don’t we see more photos or videos of the children?”
The answer to that question is not short and it’s full of lots of different considerations, one of which I just encountered a couple of hours ago. So I wanted to take some time today to share this with you.
As you might have seen in an earlier post, we (In Harmony) are exploring the poetry and the music of African-American artists in honor of Black History Month. And as part of that I arranged and adapted an excerpt from the poem “Love is…” by Common and I used it as part of a larger discussion, but as part of that some of the children learned the song and we were able to make an audio recording as a group.
So today as I was thinking about this day of love, I thought it would be really powerful to showcase that audio recording in a social media post. And I began to make the video and as I was doing it something wasn’t sitting right with me in terms of the ethical considerations of using that recording.
So I went back and forth with it for about 20 minutes and then I decided to call one of the fantastic board members of In Harmony Therapeutic Services, who also is a Board Certified Music Therapist and I wanted to seek some supervision on the issue. So we talked through it and some of what we talked about was that even though no client identifiable information was going to be shared, and even though it wasn’t a traditional music therapy group where the recording was made, as music therapists and in music therapy, our therapeutic medium is sound. So when a child plays an instrument or sings a note they are expressing part of who they are and that expression might have a therapeutic value that is seen or unseen, but it’s one that we are obligated to hold and protect. So without explicit permission we’re unable to share those things with you and you will not be seeing that video today.
You know, In Harmony is committed to very high standards for the ethical considerations surrounding our clients’ privacy. We are dedicated to fostering expression and healing and growth in a way that empowers and protects our clients journey in whatever way and for however long we are a part of it. So this is just one of the answers (probably the biggest one) but just one as to why our supporters don’t see more videos and hear more audio and see photos of the kids.
That being said, if you would like to hear the arrangement of song, I’m going to post a video right after this one. It’s going to be me singing so that you can just get a small taste of the work that we’re doing every single day. If you have any questions about this or about anything else, you can shoot us an email at: info@inharmonyservices.org.
Okay, everybody. Peace and love. Bye.