Over the past two decades, the provision of initial music teacher education in Australian universities has substantially declined (Collins & Hocking, 2023). Despite these ongoing challenges in the tertiary sector, community-based non-profit professional teacher associations continue to offer support and professional development opportunities for music teachers. While previous research has examined the contributions of university courses, external companies, and non-profit arts organisations to teacher development, limited research exists on local professional music teacher associations. This paper presents the results and analysis of interview data from a larger funded mixed-methods research project that investigates the development and wellbeing of music teachers who have completed levels of the Australian Kodály Certificate (AKC). The AKC is an internationally recognised professional development course that Kodály Australia has offered for 30 years. Course presenters are mostly local leading teachers, and it is estimated that thousands of participants have completed levels. The certificate consists of specialisations in Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary classroom music education and is highly valued by employers and government music education initiatives. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, 167 teachers completed the online survey in the study’s first phase. Twelve survey respondents were invited to complete a follow-up individual semi-structured interview with one of the authors in the second phase. Interviewees reflected a broad participant sample, including teachers from a range of teaching roles, AKC specialisations and levels, settings, and personal education backgrounds. Building upon their survey responses, interview participants were asked why they completed an AKC level, what they learned, how they benefited, and what university teacher education could learn from their experience. Interview data were analysed using reflective thematic analysis. Despite increased workload and stress being reported by teachers in recent years (Granziera, et al., 2025), findings from this project indicate that support offered by local professional music teacher associations is having a genuine and positive impact on teacher development and wellbeing. This study generates new knowledge on the impact of local professional associations in supporting teachers, and shares implications for university teacher education.