Introducing Music Therapy to the Staff at the Mass General Brigham
Brigham and Women’s Hospital NICU and Growth and Development Unit

We are delighted to announce a new collaboration between Mass General Brigham and Roman Music Therapy Services.
Roman Music Therapy Services, LLC is recognized as an outstanding human service agency, supporting individuals of all ages and abilities through goal-driven music therapy experiences in the Boston area. While we have been supporting pre-term infants and young children through early intervention and community programs over these past 15 years, we are delighted to be able to integrate research-based interventions using music to support development with young infants receiving care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

This new collaboration will introduce clinical music therapy services for the infants in the Growth and Development Unit and their parents. It will also support families and staff by providing education related to music exposure and music therapy interventions within the family-integrated developmental care model.

Introducing Roman Music Therapy Services

Roman Music Therapy Services’ Board-Certified Music Therapists use music to transform lives. Working with children and adults of all ages, we use music to uncover an individual’s potential, creating new connections, providing successful interactions and offering meaningful opportunities for growth.

As the premier independent music therapy agency in Massachusetts, Roman Music Therapy Services has set the standard nationally for community-based and contractual music therapy services. Since our founding in 2006, we have improved the lives of infants, toddlers, children, adults and seniors through goal-driven, meaningful music therapy services.

Our team is committed to three main tenets in our work:

• We are grounded in a human-centered approach to music therapy that requires us to thoughtfully adapt our responses and music interventions to the dynamic needs of the individual.
• As community music therapists, we focus on the two-way connections between individuals and communities in all that we do to help build bridges and social capital.
• Music therapy serves our communities best with a continuum of options from clinical, prescribed services in the hospital and educational settings to supportive services in the community.

Introducing Olivia Todd, MT-BC

Olivia is a board-certified music therapist who graduated with her B.M. In Music Therapy from Nazareth University in 2022. She completed her clinical internship at the VA Augusta Healthcare System in Augusta Georgia, working with individuals with various mental illnesses, chronic pain, and dementia. Olivia received her board certification in August 2023. 

Olivia works within a wide range of settings at Roman Music Therapy Services including medical and educational settings, and our music therapy center in Wakefield. Olivia has received training and support from experts in the field who specialize in utilizing music to support development, health, and wellness for premature infants. Olivia’s calm and supportive nature fosters a safe space for patients and families to grow and connect. She is privileged to continue to share the power of music therapy with the patients, families, and staff at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Introducing Daniel DeLucia, MT-BC

Daniel DeLucia (he/him) graduated with his master’s degree in music therapy from Molloy College in 2022. As a clinician, Daniel has worked with children and adults with intellectual disabilities, children and adolescents experiencing bereavement, older adults within neurologic rehabilitation and has worked virtually, providing music therapy services via Zoom. 

Daniel is currently a music therapist on the team at Roman Music Therapy Services in Wakefield, MA. He provides services in schools and communities around the Boston area and in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Mass General Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Daniel’s clinical interests include music therapy research, music therapy in the medical setting, music therapy with individuals with neurological disorders, and clinical improvisation. Daniel believes that the essence of music therapy is fostering authentic and purposeful relationships through music and is pleased to bring that notion to the families and their infants in the NICU at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  

NICU Music Therapy Info

Music therapy in the Growth and Development Unit focuses on supporting infants and parents and collaborating with the hospital staff to improve developmental outcomes.

Nurturing Infant Development

Through live and recorded music experiences, the music therapy interventions will support a variety of needs for the infants, including:

• Increasing tolerance for environmental stimuli through organized sounds and rhythms in the NICU environment utilizing research-based music therapy protocols such as Multimodal Neurological Enhancement
• Providing age and developmentally appropriate sensory, auditory and neurological stimulation
  • Enhancing interactions
  • Promoting skills
  • Improving coordination
  • Promoting transition to feeding
• Decreasing stress response of infants, particularly during and after stressful interventions and procedures, helping infants to regulate through pacification
  • Stabilizing behavioral states
  • Improving sleep
  • Supporting regulation

Providing Parent Education

Working with parents in the hospital and remotely, the music therapist will support the family-integrated developmental care model by:

• Empowering parents to be involved in the care and developmental needs of the infant
• Improving communication between parents and infants from the very start
• Providing education around reading and responding to infant cues, attachment and bonding, and music interventions
• Creating recordings of parents singing to their babies to use when they are not in the hospital
• Providing instruction and supported opportunities for parents to use live and recorded music to support soothing, feeding skills and early childhood development
• Collaborating with Allied Health Professionals and Medical Staff

Collaborating with Allied Health Staff

As an integrated member of the team, the music therapist will partner with the staff to:

• Create protocols around music exposure for babies with varied developmental and medical needs in the Growth and Development Unit
• Support ongoing infant and family needs through live and recorded music making in alignment with unit needs
• Provide training for staff about the uses of live and recorded music and the impacts of auditory stimuli on auditory processing and development

Phase One of the Music Therapy Program will be focused on:

• Program Development
  • Articulate a plan for the music therapy program
  • Develop tools and resources that can be implemented throughout the week
• Set Metrics and Outcomes
  • Identify outcomes to benefit babies, families and the team
  • Collaborate with the team to identify measures to support the unit, the Development Office and research initiatives
• Integrate into Clinical Care Team
  • Develop rapport with Allied Health Team and Nursing Staff
  • Provide in-service trainings and resources to support the use of music throughout the unit

Referral Information

Infants in the GDU may be referred to music therapy with an order from the medical team. Allied Health Professionals, social workers, parents and nurses can request an order from the infant’s primary medical doctor.

Referral Criteria for infants may include challenges or concerns with:

• Respiratory Difficulties
• Feeding, coordinated sucking, and weight gain
• Sedation and sleep
• Pain management
• Self-regulation
• Facilitating bonds with parents