A Place To Be Music Therapy Center from Middleburg, VA, presented to Dr. Michael Oberschneider, Dr. Margaret Wong, Dr. Amy Gordon, and Dr Andrea Lee on Thursday January 16th sharing all the wonderful things that are happening there! A Place To Be’s Mission is to help people face, navigate, and overcome life’s challenges through the therapeutic arts. The doctor’s saw videos of Music Therapy in action, with stories about things like how they helped a young man with a traumatic brain injury relearn to speak, play instruments and even sing and perform!

They saw videos of autistic kids making better connections, and read testimonials from grateful parents about how much their children’s well being had improved. At A Place To Be, people of all abilities Lind conLidence, leadership, and self acceptance through participation in their large variety of programs.

There were many clips from recitals, other performances, and the ongoing two part “Same Sky” show. “Behind the Label” is a show that was written by the kids themselves about living with labels, and what life is like from their perspective. They also saw a snippet of a show called “How Far I’ve Come” written by a girl with Cerebral Palsy about how she has dedicated her life to being an ambassador for all. The message of the performance is that “We All Live Under the…Same Sky!”

Those in attendance at Ashburn Psychological and Psychiatric Services learned about A Place To Be’s Music Therapy, Groups, Teen mentoring, Lunch Bunch work with a variety of Special Needs Adults, Outreach Performances, Summer Performance Camps, and their ground breaking Immersion Program. The Immersion Program is for 8-­‐12th grade kids through college age young adults helping people with a variety of abilities learn life skills and social skills through spending an entire day at A Place To Be. In Immersion, they participate in a variety of activities as a group. They become a part of a community and learn to give to the community, and recently raised money for instruments for a school in India! At A Place To Be, not only do people grow, but they get involved in volunteering for others as well.

A Place To Be is so thankful to Ashburn Psychological and Psychiatric Services’s for hosting the event and for the doctors’ curiosity in knowing about all that’s available for their patients! To learn more visit their web site at www.aplacetobeva.org.