Clara Monahan is a fully qualified music therapist who specialises in working with children and adults with disabilities. Her experience in this area is wide ranging and she has worked with children and adults with autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, Down Syndrome, learning disabilities and children with developmental delay. Clara has also worked with older adults both in the nursin
g home and hospital setting. Clara completed a Bachelor of Music from N.U.I Maynooth before qualifying as a music therapist with an MA in Music Therapy from the University of Limerick in 2008. Clara has 2 years experience working as a full time music therapist in Northern Ireland with the Northern Irish Music Therapy Trust (NIMMT). This involved designing and implementing music therapy programmes in 3 Special Schools across Northern Ireland. During this time her work was mainly with children/adolescents with autism and varying disabilities - detailed above. She also ran music therapy programmes for individual children in a centre for children with developmental delay –this involved working with families as well as individual children in the music therapy session. Clara is currently working in the Republic of Ireland as a freelance music therapist. She works in 2 centres for adults with intellectual disabilities in the Dublin area. This involves clinical individual and group music therapy. Clara also has experience running general music therapy workshops and presentations for centres/organisations in which parents/carers/teachers etc. can gain information about music therapy; the process, benefits, techniques etc. Her approach is client-centred and eclectic which looks at the ‘whole person’ in assessment and therapeutic goals are then developed from this basis.
