From January 29th to February 1st, Santa Clarita’s Child and Family Center will be hosting the internationally acclaimed HealthRHYTHMS Facilitation Training, a program designed to address the needs of at-risk populations through the power of group drumming.
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Sponsored by Remo Incorporated, the leading manufacturer of drumheads, HealthRHYTHMS uses group drumming as a form of recreational music making (RMM), which emphasizes quality of life over heightened performance, to achieve desired health outcomes in therapeutic, educational, and recreational settings.
“You can’t play a drum wrong,” said Larry Dickson. The director of the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Pennsylvania, Dickson was involved in the research and development of the HealthRHYTHMS Adolescent Protocol, and will be teaching attendees how to apply its components in their professional settings and daily lives after they learn the fundamentals and benefits of the group drumming program.
“Participants will see why and how each component works, and how they can adapt components (of HealthRHYTHMS) to the specific population they work with,” stated Dickson.
This makes the HealthRHYTHMS Facilitation Training ideal for a variety of health professionals and educators: doctors, social workers, therapists, school teachers, after-school program directors, Boy and Girl Scout leaders, as well as anyone involved in working with adolescents or the elderly.
The protocol of HealthRHYTHMS, which will be implemented over the course of two training sessions, is based on research that revealed the positive bio-psycho-social effects of recreational music making, and group drumming in particular. Initially conducted by Dr. Barry Bittman and supported in six subsequent research studies, this research demonstrated how group drumming can have a positive impact on mood, self-esteem, and even the immune system.
Remo’s Health Program Development and Marketing Manager Alyssa Janney has repeatedly witnessed the benefits of HealthRHYTHMS during her ten years with the company.
“[Participants] are a group of strangers when they come into these trainings, and within an hour to an hour of a half of going through the HealthRHYTHMS protocol, people are connecting with each other like close friends,” Janney stated. “It’s absolutely transformational. I have no qualms about saying that. I have traveled to these trainings and seen it with my own eyes.”
Along with Larry Dickson, the training sessions will be taught by Margaret Sowry, the RMM Coordinator for the Mind-Body Wellness Center and a longtime assistant to Dr. Bittman.
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