A registrant gaining additional qualifications to extend their individual scope of practice beyond the generally accepted scope of their profession
Priya is a music therapist working in independent practice in Wales and combines this with a role in education as an academic and clinical tutor.
Approach
Over time, her education role expands, so that she works four days a week in education, and one in clinical practice. This means, the majority of time that Priya is at work, her service users are students and staff at the university. To ensure her knowledge and skills reflect this shift, she undertakes a master’s degree in leadership in education management, extending her individual scope of practice beyond the traditional scope of practice for a music therapist. After completing her master’s degree, she is appointed as Head of Department.
In her role as Head of Department, Priya recognises the need for additional support for neurodivergent healthcare students. She undertakes a Professional Doctorate in Education, focusing on the academic and clinical support of neurodivergent healthcare students, and moves away from her clinical work. Her scope of practice evolves to focus on educational and research activities in this area. She develops an evidence-based initiative which provides support and guidance to neurodivergent registrants and trains mentors to support them with their career transitions and development.
Priya no longer uses a range of music and music-making techniques to support her service users (standard of proficiency 13.17). However, she knows that she still needs to meet the HCPC standards of proficiency relevant to her individual scope of practice, as well as all her standards of conduct, performance and ethics.
