Finding the beat: A partnership to address the relationship between a music program and health among youth who have experienced trauma.

OBJECTIVE

Expertise on treating trauma and traumatic stress sequelae has been siloed in the mental health professions, although somatic psychotherapies and adjuncts to treatment are gaining attention. Alternative and accessible interventions are needed, especially for youth who have experienced trauma. Lost Voices is a community-based group providing trauma-informed music therapy to youth who have experienced trauma in southern Michigan. The purpose of this program evaluation was to use a community-based participatory research approach to create a thoughtful partnership between an academic partner and a nonprofit organization in order to evaluate the outcomes of a music therapy intervention currently being delivered by professional musicians to youth who have experienced trauma.

METHOD

This program evaluation used semistructured interviews with 19 key stakeholders (e.g., youth participants, facility staff, musicians) from two residential youth programs in southern Michigan.

RESULTS

A total of four themes were identified from the interviews, including (a) processing emotion, (b) building trust, (c) self-expression, and (d) future orientation. Subthemes included and within the theme processing emotion, a focus on and within the theme building trust, the aspect of the intervention and as part of the theme self-expression, and future orientation encompassed the that youth participants gained as well as .

CONCLUSIONS

This program evaluation provides data to help build the evidence for alternative mental health treatments that specifically reach those impacted by a lack of access and availability of treatments due to social determinants of health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).