A Music Therapy Milestone: MN State Licensure

On May 16th, 2026, HF 3825 — the bill that included Minnesota music therapy licensure — officially PASSED the Minnesota House Floor with overwhelming bipartisan support in a vote of 123–10. This is an historic moment for the field of music therapy in the state of Minnesota, due to hours and hours of time volunteered by our dedicated task force members. 

Years of time, effort, and advocacy made this happen. The music therapy community and its supporters made this happen, together. We all played a part, big or small, from sending positive energy to delivering quality music therapy services to testifying on capital hill.

I had the honor of being asked to testify to the Health and Human Services committee in March of this year. I had the full support and guidance of the task force behind me, the Keynote team cheering me on, and my Children’s Minnesota government relations team helping me craft my remarks and sit beside me as I waited for my turn to testify. 

While there are many questions about what’s next and what this means for our field, that will come. I thought I would share my testimony here, in honor of the patient featured in it. As a practicing music therapist, it was part of the work that patients would die. One of my rituals to help me cope and acknowledge their death was to consider what I learned from them that I would carry with me. This particular patient taught me so much about perseverance, patience, and the power of music. She helped me get music therapy established in the NICU, and again, she helped get music therapy licensure across the finish line. Thank you, t. 

Thank you, Chair Wicklund and committee members.

My name is Kayla Shafer and I am a board-certified music therapist, the child life and music therapy manager at Children’s Minnesota, music therapy internship director, and a private practice owner. I am here to express my support for senate file 2975 which would establish state licensure for board-certified music therapists. 

In 2025, the Children’s Minnesota music therapy team alone delivered 4,000 sessions for our patients. These were patients in our inpatient mental health unit, in our partial hospitalization programs, in our emergency departments, on our med surge units, and in our intensive care units. The services my team and I provide help our young patients and their families find ways to cope in the hospital setting by expressing themselves through music. We work to help them feel less isolated and support families during some of their toughest moments, including end of life care. 

Several years ago, while working as a music therapist at Children’s Minnesota in St. Paul, I received a consult for an infant in the NICU with a significant hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. She demonstrated minimal responsiveness to environmental stimuli. When I met her for the first time, she was being held by her mother, resting closely against her. I began quietly humming and singing her name, monitoring her physiological and behavioral cues for tolerance. Within 30 seconds, she turned her head toward the sound in an attempt to locate the source–one of the most notable responses she had shown in her life up to that point. 

This infant remained hospitalized for nearly two years due to the complexity of her condition. Music therapy became part of her daily routine, supporting her comfort, developmental needs, family bonding, and ultimately end-of-life care. I was present on the final day of her life, singing her preferred lullaby while she was again held in her mother’s arms. As I began the familiar song, she lifted her hand toward her ear, as if attempting to hear more clearly–demonstrating once more a meaningful response uniquely elicited through music. 

In addition to the emotional support our team provides, our work has also been linked to positive health outcomes, especially for our NICU patients. Specific evidence-based music therapy interventions continue to be implemented in our NICUs and have been found to decrease length of stay, decrease readmission rates, increase tolerance to stimuli, and increase tolerance to feeding. 

Music therapy plays a critical role in health care. State licensure for music therapists is a vital next step for our profession as it would provide clarity for employers, case managers and other decision makers who rely on state regulations to determine documentation and billing processes for health care services. This clarity would help to avoid financial or programmatic barriers that would impact access to care and ensure that patients can benefit from the services music therapists provide. 

Thank you, Senator Port for your leadership on this bill and thank you, chair and committee members for your time.