"Center for Creative Therapeutic Arts Today Vegas…Tomorrow the World"

By Joyce Gorsuch
BLVDS Las Vegas Health/Wellness Magazine, Nevada
February, 2008

Las Vegas, city of second chances, is home to a nonprofit agency that helps people with impairments express themselves. Since 1990, the Center for Creative Therapeutic Arts on the College of Southern Nevada’s West Charleston campus has healed thousands of Nevadans with music. Now CCTA Executive Director Judith Pinkerton plans to extend the reach of music therapy to U.S. troops.

Before finding her calling, Judith Pinkerton, a violinist, thought “music healing” was for people who used energy crystals and chemically-enhanced enjoyment. Then in 1986 she changed her mind.

That was the year her husband listened to a recording of her violin solos while in the hospital recovering from back surgery. Pinkerton says the music healed him physically.

Her husband’s nurse connected the dots right away. She asked what the patient was listening to. “[The nurse] said, ‘Well, I’m supposed to give him blood pressure medication, but he doesn’t need it!’” says Pinkerton. “I said, ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’”

The nurse agreed. Soon Pinkerton was learning everything she could about music therapy. By 1989 she had earned her credentials from the Certification Board of Music Therapists, a nonprofit agency based in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Fast-forward to 2007. Three music therapists at CCTA were seeing 750 multicultural clients per week, ages one to 106. CCTA helps people with a variety of problems -- abuse, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, autism, brain injuries, cancer, dementia, depression, Down syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder, strokes, and other conditions.

As if these struggles to eat, move, or trust aren’t enough of a challenge, clients also have difficulty communicating their needs to family members and friends. That’s where CCTA comes in.

“It’s hard to process something if you can’t put words to it,” says Rachel Charise Saines, a music therapist at CCTA. “[Children] just don’t have the vocabulary. But [they] can hit a drum.”

CCTA has a varied clientele, but individual music therapists tend to specialize. Saines works with children ages three days old to 17 years old, including about 100 children who temporarily stay at Child Haven, a Clark County Department of Family Services(DFS) facility in Las Vegas for children who are removed from their families due to neglect or abuse.

Saines cannot undo the tragedies, but she can work to give the children a positive experience at Child Haven. Next, she’s implementing a volunteer program to train musicians to lead the children in musical activities.

“Musician involvement will raise public awareness of what’s happening with the children… make it [unacceptable] for these kids to fall through the cracks,” she says.

In addition to Child Haven, Saines coordinates a before-school program at O.K. Adcock Elementary School, and a during-school program at Rose Warren Empowerment Elementary School.

“There used to be more fighting [among the schoolchildren], before [Saines] started working with them,” says Pinkerton.

By providing services to children at Child Haven, CCTA doubled its census in 2007. As the number of clients has increased, so has Pinkerton’s and CCTA’s credibility. That means funding -- from more than a dozen private, nonprofit, and government sources.

And, recently, Pinkerton scored a coup for her field – State Senate Bill 558/579, in which the Nevada State Legislature awarded a $109,590 grant. According to Pinkerton, CCTA now has a national profile because Nevada is the only state to fund music therapy.

SB 558/579 requires that music therapy programs in Nevada spend the $109,590 on equipment by the end of 2009. In a time of soaring costs, meeting that requirement will be no problem, says Pinkerton.

Three music therapists in northern Nevada received about half the grant. Two are school employees; one is a nonprofit employee. CCTA is spending the other half on computer software, heat-blocking window shades, music instruments, music supplies, observation windows and soundproofing tiles.

The state grant gave Pinkerton breathing room to add a third therapist, an intern, to the staff. She found money, in CCTA’s annual budget of $200,000, to hire Emily Wiggins, a music therapy major at Marylhurst University in Portland, Oregon.

In February 2007 Wiggins became CCTA’s first music therapy intern. Her stipend covers a period of six months, at 40 hours per week, for a total of 1,020 hours.

Wiggins works with children who have limited mental functioning due to Down syndrome, a condition associated with the presence of an extra chromosome 21. Parents can observe the session through one-way observation windows.

Wiggins works with adults too, at the Nevada Adult Day Healthcare Center, a for-profit facility in Las Vegas that opened in November 2006. The daycare’s mission is to maintain or improve the capabilities of clients with medical conditions, such as stroke-induced mental impairment, traumatic brain injuries, or diabetes. Ages range from 20-something to 106.

With three music therapists on staff, Pinkerton can wear two hats – a music therapist’s and an executive director’s. In both capacities she plans for CCTA to offer more services for people with mental health issues. By early 2008 she expects to open s second location for CCTA on the east side of town.

Additionally, Pinkerton is focusing on Muisic4Life. Books and CDs developed by Music4Life, a subsidiary of SeminarConcerts International Inc., teach people to select and listen to music that helps them manage their emotions.

Pinkerton is promoting Music4Life to high-ranking officers in the U.S. military. “My son-in-law was injured by a rocket-propelled grenade while serving in Afghanistan,” says Pinkerton. “That’s when I became aware of the need for Music4Life among deployed military personnel.”

Colonel Gerald Curry, commander of 800 Security Forces troops at Nellis Air Force Base, supports introducing Music4Life to troops before, during and after deployment.

“As we endure this protracted war, we are going to need the tenets of Music4Life to assist our force in daily maintenance,” says Curry via e-mail.

Pinkerton also started corresponding with Lieutenant Colonel Kevin McCal, commander of 500 troops, during his eight-month deployment to Afghanistan.

While there, McCal became convinced that Music4Life would help troops process the shocks that can cause post traumatic stress disorder. He informally surveyed two dozen soldiers. Every one listened to music, for an average of an hour and a half per day.

“McCal has been the main advocate,” says Pinkerton. “[He’s applied] for a $100,000 Community Resilience Grant from the congressionally mandated Wounded Warrior Program [which promotes resilience in deployed Air Force personnel].”

In February Pinkerton is scheduled to present information about the program to the flight chiefs from 15 national Air Force centers. The goal is to convince them to endorse the use of Music4Life at their centers.

As of press time the military has yet to provide funding. Pinkerton says that if approved, that grant will pay for a study of the effects of Music4Life on deployed military personnel. Full funding of $100,000 would provide resources to track 200 Nellis troops. Now, Pinkerton is ending her 12-hour workday. She smiles and says she can’t imagine doing anything else. “When you have a passion for what you do, it’s just there. You see the need for it; it motivates and inspires you every day.” For more information about the Center for Creative Therapeutic Arts, call 702-363-8166 or visit www.ccta.us.