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Community & care

Prevention

An engaging, music-based way to teach coping, decision-making and protective factors; it powers media campaigns and positive alternative activities, supports peer-support engagement, and reduces stigma.

We support prevention and protective factors, coping and decision-making skills, peer-support engagement, recovery support, and reduced risk behaviors with the SEL books, keynotes, and the music recording program.

FAQs

Straight answers.

  • Skill building in self-management, conflict resolution, and peer relationships — the protective factors common to substance use, violence, and dropout prevention frameworks. It is universal-level programming, delivered to whole groups rather than to identified individuals.

  • It sits in the universal SEL and skill-building layer that most school violence prevention frameworks include alongside reporting systems, tiered supports, and threat assessment. Programs searching for violence prevention programs for schools or building a youth violence prevention program should understand that this is one component of that structure, not a substitute for the others. It is not a threat assessment tool and should never be described as one.

  • Prevention and school climate work are the same effort described two ways — both are trying to change what the daily environment feels like rather than respond to individual incidents. Universal programming that students choose to participate in is one of the few levers that moves both. In California, school climate is LCFF Priority 6, which is usually where the funding justification for this kind of programming is written.

  • Title IV-A, 21st CCLC, SAMHSA prevention awards, state prevention allocations, and Bureau of Justice Assistance programs, depending on the setting. Federal awards require the expense to be necessary, reasonable, and allocable to the approved project.

  • Ask us what we have. Prevention buyers apply a higher evidence bar than most categories and they are right to — we would rather tell you plainly what our evidence base includes than have you discover the gap after purchase.

  • Yes, on the Psychological Effects of Music Prevention Resource Books — on site or virtually, including when to refer a participant rather than continue with group material. That book is the only thing we train facilitators on.

  • Yes, and it is one of the more reliable ones: structured time, adult supervision, a prosocial peer group, and a skill with a visible outcome. Those are the protective factors most prevention frameworks are trying to install. Programs building out violence prevention programs for schools use it in the universal engagement layer, alongside — not instead of — tiered supports and reporting systems.

  • We offer universal skill-building material that programs use inside a violence prevention framework, not a standalone violence prevention curriculum. The distinction is worth keeping straight. Programs searching for a violence prevention curriculum for youth, violence prevention education, or a violence prevention project usually need a named curriculum plus engagement programming. We are the second part.

  • No, and that matters here more than in most categories. Programs looking for evidence based youth violence prevention programs are typically working against a funding requirement that names specific registries, and we are not listed on one. 

    If your award requires a registry-listed program, we are not it. We can work alongside one as engagement programming or supplemental program.

  • In the universal layer. School based violence prevention programs and violence prevention programs for youth generally combine reporting systems, tiered supports, threat assessment, and universal skill building. Ours is the last of those. Youth violence prevention programs at the community level use it the same way — as the engagement offering inside a larger structure. Programs building violence prevention strategies for a district or community typically pair universal programming with the identification and response systems. We do not substitute for either.

  • Programs searching for gun violence prevention programs, a gun violence prevention curriculum, or youth gun violence prevention programs are usually looking for something more targeted than we offer. Our material addresses conflict resolution and emotional regulation at the universal level; it does not address firearms directly. Community programs — including violence prevention programs Chicago and similar city-level initiatives — have used arts programming as the engagement component within a larger strategy. That is the honest scope of it.

  • No. We send our own staff to run the programming. We do not train your staff to run it. Recording and production is a skill set, not a procedure. Trying to hand it off in a few hours would be like teaching a doctor to perform surgery in an afternoon — you would get a session that technically happened and a result nobody wants to hear. This is separate from the facilitator training we offer on the material itself, which we do provide. Recording is delivered by our people.

  • No. We are supplemental. We do not replace your SEL curriculum, your trauma-informed practice, or any program you already have in place. If you run a core SEL program, keep it — ours adds a music-based component alongside it. If you have trauma-informed protocols, training, and referral pathways, those stay in force exactly as they are. Nothing in our material substitutes for them, and our facilitators are not a substitute for your clinical, counseling, or behavioral staff. Your identification systems, tiered supports, threat assessment process, and any registry-listed curriculum stay in place. We are the universal engagement layer added to that structure.

  • Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Group Workshop is built for exactly this — a family engagement event where parents and children participate together rather than sitting through a presentation. That is the difference that matters for attendance. Families come to an event where something happens; they skip an information night. The session is music-driven and participatory, so a parent who speaks little English and a fourth grader are in it on the same terms. Family engagement is a protective factor in its own right, and most prevention frameworks include a family component that programs struggle to fill.

  • Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Group Workshop works for coalition meetings, community forums, staff development, and youth events. For a community audience it reaches people who do not attend prevention presentations.

  • We provide the universal engagement layer inside one, not a standalone program. Coalitions building youth violence prevention programs combine reporting systems, tiered supports, threat assessment, and universal skill building. 

    Programs searching for evidence based youth violence prevention programs or a list of evidence based programs for youth should know we are not registry-listed. If your funder requires that, we are not it — we work alongside one. 

    For at risk youth prevention programs more broadly, our part is the participation piece.

  • We support suicide prevention, substance abuse, and marijuana prevention campaigns with peer support activities and campaign music. Programs in the past have created prevention campaign music videos to support their initiatives. We even offered social media advertising to spread the message further.

  • Structured prosocial time with adult supervision and a skill outcome. 

    The Psychological Effects of Music Prevention Resource Books and recording Program, run as structured prosocial time with adult supervision and a skill outcome — the protective factors most prevention frameworks are trying to install. 

    Coalitions looking for youth engagement activities ideas or at risk youth program ideas generally need something that draws voluntarily. Mandated prevention programming reaches attendance, not engagement.

  • Yes. Coalitions looking for youth mental health speakers or social emotional learning speakers book the Psychological Effects of Music interactive Group Workshop for community forums, school events, and staff development. 

    It is prevention programming rather than clinical content, and it reaches audiences that do not attend prevention presentations.

How this program runs

Same SIWM work. Built for Prevention.

Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.

Aligned with prevention priorities by strengthening protective factors, positive decision-making, healthy coping and peer connection. Youth use music and media to develop prevention messages while building SEL, leadership, resilience and community awareness. CASEL 5 SEL competencies; SAMHSA prevention framework & protective factors; trauma-informed, strengths-based practice; National Core Arts (Music/Media Arts).

Send a request and tell us this is a Prevention site.

The Psychological Effects of Music

SEL books & curriculum

SEL books by Ava Johnson plus keynotes for the same rooms.

Ava the Aviator

Keynotes & assemblies

Interactive talks on the science of sound and the psychology of music.

The studio

Recording & music video program

Participants write and perform. We record, produce, and film.

Scope a Prevention program.

Tell us the site, the participant count, and whether you need books, a keynote, or the studio.

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