Suzanne Makary, a board-certified music therapist at St. Luke’s Penn Foundation, has co-authored a new book that demonstrates how music can help children develop essential emotional and social skills.
Makary works with an interdisciplinary team in the Partial Hospitalization Program and is a passionate advocate for music therapy.
The 224-page book, Creative DBT Activities for Children Using Music Therapy, published in November by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, is designed for teachers and therapists working with children in kindergarten through fifth grade. It offers practical, skills-based activities that integrate music into lessons on emotional regulation, decision-making, impulse control and interpersonal communication.
Each chapter includes session plans, suggested adaptations and links to supporting resources. “We designed these activities for folks who have limited to no musical skills,” Makary explains, making the book accessible to educators and caregivers alike.
Creative DBT Activities for Children Using Music Therapy is available through major retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
This is Makary’s second publication with Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Her first book, Creative DBT Activities Using Music: Interventions for Enhancing Engagement and Effectiveness in Therapy, released in March 2020, focused on teens and adults. Both books teach Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills through music-based interventions, a method Makary has championed throughout her career.
The idea for the new book emerged about two years ago when Makary and colleagues in a DBT certification program recognized the growing need for emotional skill-building among younger children. “We realized teachers needed tools to introduce these concepts early,” Makary says. “That need turned into creating a lesson-plan style book focused on elementary-age children.”
Makary collaborated with four other therapists to develop interventions for the book and continues to teach in the DBT certification program three nights a month. “I enjoyed the writing and editing process and am excited to spread the use of music to help others,” she adds.
Music therapy has been an integral part of St. Luke’s Penn Foundation’s adolescent and adult Partial Hospitalization Programs since 1997. St. Luke’s Penn Foundation, with 35 inpatient and outpatient programs at more than 15 locations, is the largest fully integrated network of mental health and addiction treatment services in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Using a compassionate, personalized and holistic approach, St. Luke’s Penn Foundation’s model of care offers the opportunity for an empowering and life-changing experience.
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley’s biggest employer.
The Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation’s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows.
In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognized St. Luke’s ahead of nationally renowned Mayo Clinic and Houston Methodist as the nation’s three highest performing health systems for quality, safety and patient experience – affirming St. Luke’s status as a leader among the largest and best-known health care providers in the country.
St. Luke’s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight A’s from Leapfrog across all of its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when its flagship University Hospital was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Gary Blockus
