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Student Support Services

Exposes students to STEM and creative-industry careers and to music as a stress-management tool that increases persistence, participation and retention, a memorable college and career-readiness experience. Great for workshops, Lunch and Learns, and an interactive keynote for conferences.

We support music-industry and STEM career exploration, outreach and recruiting, participant retention, and college and career readiness with the SEL books, keynotes, and the recording and music video program.

FAQs

Straight answers.

Self-management, help-seeking, managing academic setbacks, and belonging. These are the non-cognitive factors that separate students who persist from students with similar academic preparation who leave. The material uses music as the vehicle, which lowers resistance among students who have had negative experiences with academic support framing.
The advanced edition works with traditional-age and adult students. Programs searching for social emotional learning books for adults will find most published SEL material is written for children — the advanced edition is written for an adult reading and interest level.
Yes. Several programs use it as a module inside an existing seminar rather than as a standalone. The consumable format means each student has their own copy for the term.
SSS serves low-income, first-generation, and disabled students, and belonging is one of the retention factors most affected by whether students see themselves reflected in support programming. Programs looking for relevant social emotional learning as a framing are working on exactly that.

Request a sample. Your student advisory group or peer mentors are a better evaluator of this than we are.
Yes, on the Psychological Effects of Music Supplemental Instructional Books. Sessions cover the research on music and learning and how to lead the book with students who are skeptical of support programming.

That is the scope of what we train. We also offer Professional Development on Behavior and Stress Management.
Yes. Recording is collaborative under time pressure, which makes it effective team building for peer mentor groups, cohort programs, and student staff. Belonging is one of the retention factors most responsive to shared work. Many programs bring us in for the student leadership retreats and conferences

It also runs as a standalone workshop for students exploring media and audio career paths.
Yes, on the underlying skills rather than as a resume workshop. The material builds the self-assessment and articulation resume building requires — naming what you can do and why it matters. The recording programming adds career exploration: audio, live sound, and media production as career paths, plus experience with a professional workflow of deadlines and revision.
Melody and rhythm aid recall, which is why the material uses song structure to carry concepts. Programs that run a workshop series often find students can recall the framework later when it was delivered musically rather than as slides.
Belonging and non-cognitive factors are the levers SSS has that academic preparation does not. Programs building a student retention plan or looking at student retention programs generally have advising covered and belonging uncovered. Our Keynotes are Perfect for directors looking for stress management speakers and motivational speakers stress management.

Our part is a component. Retention responds to aid, coursework, work hours, and family circumstance, and we are not going to attribute a retention change to a workbook.
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. Peer mentors and student staff participate as participants, not as facilitators.
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. Tutoring, advising, and any counseling referral pathway you run stay exactly as they are.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Keynote works for cohort kickoffs, retention events, and student leadership gatherings. It also functions as a recruitment event for the program itself, which is a persistent challenge for SSS.
45 minutes to 2 hours. Most schools book a class period or 90 minutes. The 90-minute format is the one we recommend when you have the room. 45 minutes works for a single class period or a tight bell schedule, and 2 hours suits a half-day event, a grade-level rally, or a Black History Month or Red Ribbon Week program. Tell us your bell schedule and we will fit the session to it rather than asking you to build around us.
Quote, W-9, and invoice provided. Costs need to be necessary, reasonable, and allocable to your approved project. We are SAM.gov registered and accept purchase orders and card payment.
Often, yes, because participation is voluntary and the draw is the music rather than the help.

Voluntary participation in something students want. Our usage of Music is how we do just that. Effective student engagement strategies in a support-services context have to overcome the stigma of being identified for support at all.

Music lowers that barrier, which is why students who avoid tutoring will attend a recording session. For student motivation and engagement strategies, that self-selection is the mechanism.
SSS exists to increase student retention, and the non-cognitive side is where programs have room to work. Self-management, help-seeking, and belonging separate students who persist from students with equivalent preparation who leave.

Directors building college persistence programs or asking how to improve retention in students usually need something students attend voluntarily — identified-for-support programming carries a stigma that suppresses participation.

One input among many. We will not attribute a retention change to a workbook.

How this program runs

Same SIWM work. Built for Student Support Services.

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 Student Support Services goals for college persistence, academic achievement, retention, and degree completion. Builds connection, confidence, communication, leadership, stress-management, and student engagement. CASEL 5 SEL competencies; National Core Arts (Music/Media Arts); Common Core ELA writing & public speaking; CTE Arts/A-V & career-readiness pathways; STEM/STEAM.

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The Psychological Effects of Music