Pathways to wealth and wellness.

Creating pathways that improve the health and wellness of vulnerable populations since 1999.

Connecting the Dots

• Our signature approach is using that which is culturally familiar and relevant for teaching and learning purposes.

• We focus on seven key skills: a) critical thinking; b) healthy decision; c) problem solving; d) healthy coping; e) information seeking; f) and g) communication skills.

• These skills when introduced early enable us to minimize the impact of adverse childhood experiences, especially among vulnerable populations.

• We offer our educational and treatment services under the brand name: MusicsEnergy™ [ME].

Do you see what I see?

• Using popular youth music and media, we address ten prevailing themes and messages in Popular Youth Music and Media® [PYMM] that strongly correlate with health outcomes and have a causal linked to adverse health outcomes.

• The these are: 1) alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; 2) casual suggestive sex/sexuality; 3) dark, deviant behavior; 4) interpersonal/intrapersonal conflict; 4) violence, aggressive behavior, and trauma; 6) explicit/foul language; 7) narcissism; 8) criminal activity; 9) excessive consumerism; and 10) group think.

Positive Attributes for Living [PALs]®

We introduce several Positive Attributes for Living® [PALs] that help young people consider the persuasive influence of digitally-accessed information, news, and media entertainment on identity formation, values, coping strategies, and communication norms. The seven PALs we introduce are: a) self and social awareness; b) self and social responsibility; c) faith; d) hope; e) love; f) romance; and g) applying life lessons.

MusicsEnergy™ is the foundation upon which all our education and therapeutic services are based.

Click here: to learn more about MusicsEnergy: Life Literacy Curriculum™ including a description of our top three programs/interventions where PALs are introduced and fostered.

Questions & Answers

How has the organization adapted to COVID-19?

• Health disparities and social injustice existed well before the current global crisis. The confluence of these two realities, coupled with mounting stress and trauma, warrants us calling this a twindemic, unlike any other time in modern history.

• We continue to address social and emotional health and wellbeing by focusing on attitudes, beliefs, and choices expressed as behavior, with emphasis on promoting seven key competencies, resilience, coping, and social justice.

• We offer customized curriculum and instruction, enrichment programming, and therapeutic support services in the form of courses, seminars, group presentations, workshops, and group music therapy. 

Why is what we do important?

Most young people access their information, news, and media entertainment via digital sources. Regrettably, many of these sources are not vetted, and consequently are not accurate, credible or reliable. Our work is evidence-based with empirical data. This means our creative methods of addressing the prevailing themes and messages in popular youth music and media [PYMM] have been evaluated and peer reviewed based.

The scripts and stereotypes presented in PYMM are familiar to all of us. If addressed early with emphasis on deconstruction, dialogue, and role play, we give young people the opportunity to refine their communication and critical thinking skills. We also teach how to problem solve, make decisions, minimize stress, clarify their values and how they view others.

What makes us unique? 

• MusicsEnergy: Life Literacy Curriculum [ME: LLC] is an evidence-based approach to engaging young people via prosocial teaching, learning, enrichment, and therapy. ME: LLC has been evaluated for its feasibility and acceptable among parents, students, teachers, administrators, and school personnel. Our approach integrates state adopted standards of learning in the following five content areas: English Language Arts; Visual and Performing Arts/Media Arts; History/Social Studies, Health/Science, and Computer/Information Technology.

• Click here to access a selection of peer reviewed manuscripts about this approach.

Where has MusicsEnergy been introduced or implemented? 

• Over the past two decades, we have worked with stakeholders providing professional and staff development training, and more recently, implementation monitoring, supervision, teaching, facilitation, coaching, and therapy. We have reached hundreds of youth, families, school personnel, staff of healthcare facilities, and youth serving professionals, and practitioners. Click here for a partial list of where we have worked in the United States and abroad.

What have been some results of evaluation research and repeated trials?

• Students and staff find MusicsEnergy® to be acceptable for engaging young people in activities that require critical thinking about the themes and messages in music and how this approach can be used to facilitate health education and media literacy.

• Administrators at the school and district levels agree that the MusicsEnergy: Life Literacy Curriculum™ is culturally relevant, responsive, and innovative because it a fun way to incorporate standards from five different content areas.

• Most teachers find MusicsEnergy to be culturally relevant, culturally engaging, culturally responsive and student-centered. Teachers also note this approach reaches youth already at higher risk for dropping out of school or those otherwise not engaged in school.

• Community members noted that by placing emphasis on behavior, lifestyle media literacy MusicsEnergy™ is a good way to address students’ emotional and mental wellbeing, and gives them a safe space to process all that is presenting in social media.

• All stakeholders agree that MusicsEnergy™ subtly introduces ethical considerations and moral reasoning without being confrontational. They believe that using music and media allows a “judgment-free” dialogue or exchange as they develop their own values.

These results highlight the tremendous influence and potential impact of this novel approach to curriculum, instruction, enrichment, and group music therapy.

Services