HELP US Empower Our Youth

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“Adolescence is a critical period of development characterized by numerous challenges and transitions. During this time, young individuals are susceptible to various mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Arts education can serve as a powerful preventive tool to mitigate potential negative mental health outcomes among adolescents.” - Renate Rohlfing M.M., M.A., MT-BC - Arts Education and Youth Identity

Studies show that students with arts classes also tend to have superior attendance records and demonstrate a greater overall engagement in their educational pursuits compared to those who do not participate in the arts. 

Moreover, 73% of Generation Z report an enhanced drive to work diligently when they perceive that their boss is concerned about their well-being and provides guidance. Comparable outcomes were observed with broader mentoring initiatives. 79% of millennials view mentoring as essential for their career success and 63% of millennials report that their leadership skills are not being adequately developed. 

Benefits of Mentorship

• Refining Career Objectives - Engaging in discussions with a mentor enables you to chart your career trajectory with greater clarity. Their guidance aids in identifying both immediate and distant professional aspirations, allowing you to collaboratively devise plans to fulfill these objectives. An effective mentor attentively considers your vocational ambitions, leverages their expertise to evaluate the feasibility of your plans, and assists in breaking down attainable targets into manageable, executable actions.
• Improved motivation 
• Healthier relationships and lifestyle choices
• Better attitude about school
• Higher college enrollment rates and higher educational aspirations
• Enhanced self-esteem and self-confidence
• Improved behavior, both at home and at school
• Stronger relationships with parents, teachers, and peers
• Improved interpersonal skills
• Decreased likelihood of initiating drug and alcohol use (MENTOR, 2009; Cavell, DuBois, Karcher, Keller, & Rhodes, 2009)

Theater and Drama Education

A multitude of research has established a link between participation in drama and enhanced academic performance. Students engaged in drama activities not only achieve higher scores on standardized tests than their peers who are not exposed to the arts, but they also exhibit improved reading comprehension. Moreover, these students tend to have superior attendance records and demonstrate a greater overall engagement in their educational pursuits compared to those who do not participate in the arts. (SOURCE)

• A study published in Champions of Change (1999) cites theatre arts, including performance, classes, and participation in a drama club, as a source for "gains in reading proficiency, gains in self-concept and motivation, and higher levels of empathy and tolerance towards others” among youth of low socio-economic status .
• Drama activities can improve and help to maintain social and language skills of students with learning disabilities and remedial readers .
• Improvisational drama contributes to improved reading achievement and attitude in disadvantaged students.

Music Education (SOURCE)

• Children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons (Arete Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Students in high-quality school music education programs score higher on standardized tests compared to students in schools with deficient music education programs, regardless of the socioeconomic level of community (Nature Neuroscience, April 2007).
• Students in all regions with lower-quality instrumental programs scored higher in English and mathematics than students who had no music at all (Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007; Dr. Christopher Johnson, Jenny Memmott).
• African-American and Hispanic parents generally believe more strongly in a wide array of potential benefits from music education, are more likely to have seen these positive impacts on their own child and more strongly support expanding music education programs. Ironically, these parents also are more likely to report that there are no music programs in their schools (21 percent of African-American parents and 22 percent of Hispanic parents report this, compared to 15 percent of Caucasian parents)(NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training. Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory (Strait, D.L. and N. Kraus, Biological impact of auditory expertise across the life span: musicians as a model of auditory learning. Hearing Research, 2013.)
• Music training in childhood “fundamentally alters the nervous system such that neural changes persist in adulthood after auditory training has ceased" (Skoe, E. & N. Kraus.  2012.  A little goes a long way: How the Adult Brain Is Shaped by Musical Training in Childhood.  The Journal of Neuroscience, 32(34):11507–11510).
• Studies have shown that young children who take keyboard lessons have greater abstract reasoning abilities than their peers, and that these abilities improve over time with sustained training in music (Rauscher, F.H. , & Zupan, M., "Classroom keyboard instruction improves kindergarten children's spatial-temporal performance: A field experiment" Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15 , 215-228.2000).
• Children with learning disabilities or dyslexia who tend to lose focus with more noise could benefit greatly from music lessons (Arete Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Arete Music Academy. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training (National Association for Music Education. "The Benefits of the Study of Music." National Association for Music Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Young Children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do not receive musical training (Dr. Laurel Trainor, Prof. of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior at McMaster University, 2006).
• Musically trained children performed better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics, and IQ (Dr. Laurel Trainor, Prof. of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior at McMaster University, 2006).
• Music education sharpens student attentiveness (Arts Education Partnership, 2011).
• Music education equips students to be creative (Arts Education Partnership, 2011).
• Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children than in those without music training. Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory (Strait, D.L. and N. Kraus, Biological impact of auditory expertise across the life span: musicians as a model of auditory learning. Hearing Research, 2013.)
• According to research published in a 2014 article in Parents magazine, learning how to play percussion instruments helps children develop coordination and motor skills, because they require movement of the hands, arms, and feet (Kwan, A. 2013, “6 Benefits of Music Lessons,” Parents).
• Music and math are highly intertwined. By understanding beat, rhythm, and scales, children are learning how to divide, create fractions, and recognize patterns (Lynn Kleiner, founder of Music Rhapsody in Redondo Beach, CA).
• Children who study a musical instrument are more likely to excel in all of their studies, work better in teams, have enhanced critical thinking skills, stay in school, and pursue further education (Arte Music Academy. "Statistical benefits of music in education." Statistical-Benefits-Of-Music-In-Education. Accessed July 17, 2014).
• Majorities of both parents and teachers see a myriad of social-emotional, academic, 21st century skill, community, and physical and health benefits from music education—especially social-emotional benefits (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).
• Majorities of parents whose children are involved in music classes also credit music education for making them happier, more focused, more selfdisciplined, stronger academically and more helpful (NAMM Foundation and Grunwald Associates LLC, 2015. Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K–12 Music Education in the United States: 2015).