More Than a Nice-to-Have: Why Music Therapy Deserves Its Place in Funded Support Plans
If you’re a music therapist, chances are you’ve had to advocate—and advocate hard—for music therapy to be included in someone’s support plan. Here in Australia, we’ve been doing that advocacy on repeat. Music therapy is too often scrutinised or misunderstood in government and insurance-funded schemes like the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Despite our best efforts and the quality evidence we present, it is still misunderstood as recreational or non-essential.
Honestly. I’m tired and frustrated by this. Tired, but definitely not giving up.
Because it matters. It matters that people have the right to access the therapy that works for them. Music therapy is a recognised allied health profession, with qualified practitioners supporting goals in communication, emotional and mental health, cognition, and social connection. And when it’s the therapy someone responds to, especially someone with complex needs, it should be funded.
Today, I found myself frustrated again, responding to yet another misrepresentation of music therapy in the NDIS. So, I thought I’d put into words some of the very same points I’ve had to clearly state over and over again. This is for the people who need music therapy in their plans and for the therapists and advocates who keep showing up to make that happen.
Arts for Health and the Continuum of Care
It’s true that many community-based music and arts programs offer valuable benefits for health and wellbeing. Participating in the arts can reduce loneliness, improve mood, and promote quality of life. These programs play a vital role in the broader arts-for-health movement and more and more evidence is emerging of the benefits (Fancourt & Finn, 2019).
But music therapy sits further along the continuum (Short & MacRitchie, 2023), offering a more targeted, clinical approach. It’s delivered by registered music therapists trained to use music for specific, and often individualised, therapeutic goals. For some people, this specialised allied healthcare is essential, and cannot be substituted with general arts participation or community music groups.
What Music Therapy Offers
Music therapy is a clinical, evidence-based intervention that supports a range of goals, including:
Communication: Enhancing spoken and non-spoken expression, supporting alternative modes of communication (e.g., via song, movement, rhythm, or assisted technology)
Cognitive functioning: Strengthening attention, memory, and executive function, including in the context of ageing, dementia, and developmental disability
Emotional wellbeing: Supporting regulation, mood, identity, and coping strategies
Social participation: Facilitating engagement, social communication, peer relationships, and meaningful interaction through music
Neuro-rehabilitation: Supporting the rehabilitation of motor skills, cognition and communication when brain injuries occur
When Music Is the Language
While we know other services may include music for motivation, in the practice of music therapy, music is the therapy. More precisely, it is within the music, that the therapy unfolds. In particular:
People may communicate more fluently through musical choices, actions, gestures, instrumental play or vocalisations of sounds rather than spoken words
Music therapy may offer a musical context that provides familiarity and repetition of routine, helping people feel secure to work on health outcomes
Some participants may express preferences, needs, or emotions far more clearly through rhythm, melody, intonation, dynamics and song words
Playing or listening to music together, synchronising to each others’ beat, may feel more comfortable than engaging in back-and-forth conversations
A registered music therapist understands how to interpret, expand, and scaffold this kind of musical communication using improvisational music therapy methods to support positive therapeutic outcomes. As a result, music therapy is relational, musical, communicative, engaging and creative.
Honestly, I’m so passionate about the value of music therapy (and potentially biased) when writing this, but genuinely, this is what I see and experience in the clinical programs that my colleagues and I deliver.
What participants tell us
We also frequently seek feedback from the families and participants that we work with. They have shared with us that their music therapy program supports social participation, with improvement in play skills and increased confidence to engage with peers. Much of our work supports communication, and families report noticeable progress through the use of multi-modal approaches. Participant also report greater emotional awareness and discover ways of using music in their daily life to enhance their mood and reduce anxiety. Our own research has shown that music therapy techniques can boost memory, attention and creativity, with participants reporting increased self-confidence and a stronger belief in their own abilities.
Backed by Evidence
There is extensive research supporting the impact of music therapy on functional outcomes… functional being a word used by the NDIS and certainly not a word I use in my music therapy practice. I tend to say there is evidence of health improvement. Because there is. And this includes, but is not limited to
Improved social communication for children and adults with disabilities (Moreno-Garcia et al., 2020; Boster et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2022)
Reduced adverse symptoms for people diagnosed with dementia (Ueda et al., 2013; Baker et al., 2022)
Enhanced cognitive functioning through improvisational music therapy (Abrahan et al., 2019; Connell, 2025)
Support for mental health, anxiety and depression across the lifespan (Trimmer et al., 2018; Jia et al., 2020; Lu et al., 2021)
These outcomes are measurable, clinically relevant, and frequently aligned with funding support plans, such as the NDIS in Australia, where social and community participation, improved daily living, and health and wellbeing are essential.
Why Funding Matters
Under insurance schemes like the NDIS, supports must be reasonable and necessary to be funded. We expect and welcome this. It holds us all to account and ensures participants receive the best possible service to meet their health needs. Music therapy meets the reasonable and necessary criteria when:
It is linked to specific goals in the person’s plan
It is not replaced by other funded or informal supports outside the NDIS
It is safe, tailored, and delivered by a qualified health professional
It contributes to capacity building, community and workplace participation and support the person to pursue their goals and aspirations
In these cases, music therapy is not a “nice-to-have” but a needed and necessary healthcare option. Especially when other therapies don’t suit the person’s needs or communication style.
More criteria is coming to improve understanding of the reasonable and necessary criteria in the NDIS. This might mean more hoops to jump through when seeking funding. Music therapists are likely to still find advocacy a significant part of their role. Being able to articulate how music therapy works with reference to the research-evidence base, our own clinical practice and the participant experience and outcomes in a program is going to be vital.
A Call to Listen Differently
We must expand our understanding of what therapy looks like. For many, music is the language they speak best. For others, a music therapy setting is the space where they feel calm, motivated, and connected. Removing access to this support risks denying people the choice of a therapeutic medium that best supports them.
With arts for health growing as a viable healthcare option, awareness of community offerings that can also offer healthcare solutions for participants who cannot receive funding in the NDIS will be important. Possibly, music therapists will offer some of these solutions. Hopefully, in Australia, some community ‘link’ options are not too far away to better support knowledge of what is available.
Join the Conversation
Whether in aged care, disability, or mental health, we must advocate for diverse and inclusive therapeutic options that reflect the needs and strengths of people in our community. A cohesive offer combined with community wellbeing cooperatives and supports will bring even more choice and control and potentially offer health equity for all. Our overall aim as music therapists is to support people to live a better and healthier life. We are part of the solution, not the problem. We’ll never stop advocating for that.
If you’d like to add your voice to this conversation, contact us or add a comment. We’d love to hear your views too.
