News & Update

Drumming for Your Life will be leading 21 Creating the Life and Community You Want Drum Circles throughout Los Angeles County during May and June's LACDMH's Take Action L.A. Click on link to find an event near you. Visit LA County Mental Health Month website for more information.

Drumming for Your Life is excited to start our Life Skills Drumming program at the Weingart Center in downtown Los Angeles. We’ll be working with high control offenders.

Through our contract with Transforming L.A. we’re working with ALMA Family Centers, Men’s and Women’s Reintegration Centers, N.E. Mental Health Wellness Center, The Center in Hollywood, Hollywood/Wilshire Public Health Center, L.A. Public Library & St. Alphonsus School

UCLA research started in September with our Life Skills Drumming program at N.E. Mental Health Wellness Center.

We welcome our newest board member Dr. Joan Bravo and facilitator Alberto Lopez to our team.

We’re starting Reading & Rhythm programs at Little Rock High School and iLEAD Antelope Valley Hybrid.

Forward Thinking Virtual Summit put on by The Network for Social Work Management – We are leading The Pulse of Mindfulness Workshop on June 14th from 1:15-2:15pm. Go to https://socialworkmanager.org for more info.

WisdoMania Festival – Mental Health Month. We are leading a Creating the Life You Want virtual workshop May 15th from 3-4pm. Go to https://www.wisdomaniafest.com/schedule.

Carlos Santana’s Arts Academy welcomes the Reading & Rhythm program to their school to work with some of their second grade students.

Transforming L.A. has renewed DFYL’s contract with DMH for the upcoming fiscal year where we’ll be working both our Reading & Rhythm and Life Skills Drumming programs throughout the Los Angeles area.

LACOE (L.A. County Office of Education) has renewed DFYL’s Reading & Rhythm program for the juvenile halls for the upcoming fiscal year where we’re working with both Title 1 and IEP students.

Mental Health Action Day - In partnership with over 450 brands, nonprofits, cultural leaders and government agencies, Drumming for Your Life Institute is proud to be a partner in the first-ever Mental Health Action Day on Thursday, May 20th when we will encourage and empower people to take the next step for #MentalHealthAction. Go to MentalHealthActionDay.org to learn more and join our effort to shift from awareness to action on mental health!” “#MentalHealthAction”

DMH and Community Partners have chosen DFYL through Transforming LA Through Partnership Initiative to work with underserved communities in SA4 with both our programs. - The LA County Department of Mental Health serves a quarter of a million patients, the largest in the nation. For nonprofits that lack infrastructure but provide impactful mental health services along with maintaining strong and authentic connections with their communities, the process for acquiring contracts to help serve LACDMH’s patients can seem almost impossible. “Working and contracting with government agencies is very difficult,” said LACDMH Director of Mental Health Jonathan Sherin, M.D., PhD. “This initiative’s main focus is to serve grassroots organizations who know their communities best to get things done.”

NEW Research project at UCLA  - Dr. Robert Bilder, Director of the NEA Research Lab at UCLA has selected Drumming for Your Life and Herbie Hancock’s Jazz Academy to be part of a new, exciting research project. More news to come.

Los Angeles Wave Newspapers, MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Drumming institute provides tempo for its members

WeRise 2021 - Drumming for Your Life drum circle on #MentalHealthActionDday.

L.A. County ARTS Commission renews contract with DFYL to work Reading & Rhythm program in three juvenile halls from September thru June 2019. Through a contract with the L.A. County Arts Commission, from Jan. thru June, 2018 the Reading & Rhythm program helped over 150 kids at the L.A juvenile halls dramatically improve their reading skills. L.A. County Dept. of Mental Health gives an additional contract to DFYL to add more Life Skills Drumming classes in the juvenile halls. Steven Angel led a large drum circle that culminated the We Rise Festival held over 10 days in May in downtown L.A. sponsored by L.A. County Dept. of Mental Health and featured artists such as Jackson Browne, Common and the Black Eyed Peas. L.A. County delivers a 4th contract to DFYL to select 12 kids over the year from the detention camps who have gone through the R&R program to then be trained to become R&R facilitators for 6 weeks with pay when they are released back in the community. They will help other struggling readers at DMH TAY centers with a DFYL facilitator supervising.

Steven led a drum circle for the second year at the We Rise Festival in Los Angeles. https://www.lacity.org/highlights/summer-night-lights-offers-activities-for-local-communities-through-summer Mayor Garcetti presents Summer Night Lights events. Life Skills Drumming program will be at two of their locations.