Anyone familiar with Lost Voices knows how clever and deeply introspective the kids can be. I’ve been writing songs with them for a decade and a half, and I’m still constantly amazed at the quality and diversity of the lyrics they come up with. During the six programs we were able to do this year, we created original music with more than 50 girls and boys. 

We got songs about resilience:

Like a phoenix we rise from the ashes
Growing stronger every time
Using the scars from the past to guide us
We look for a brighter future. (more…)

As much as Lost Voices has grown to reach new populations of youth over the past 15 years, there are still a whole lot of kids out there that we’ve never been able to help. That’s why it is so exciting to build a new partnership, like we have this year with the Methodist Children’s Home Society, or MCHS. With an initial program funded by a generous donation from Lost Voice supporters George and John Shea, we were able to work with the boys in this wonderful facility for the first time.

Carolyn Watson, the Chief Advancement Officer at MCHS had good things to say about our time with the boys:

MCHS is grateful for the time and energy Lost Voices spent with our children. The creative outlet our youth received from the program is immeasurable and an experience that will stay with them for life. Thank you to Lost Voices and the amazing musicians who took the time to make a difference in the lives of our children!

Speaking for the whole Lost Voices team, I’ll say that we are just as grateful to be working with MCHS and the young men in their care. (more…)

There is a wonderful annual event that happens every spring in our state called the Michigan Teen Conference. This is an amazing four-day conference for teens from all around the state who have been in foster care and are preparing for life on their own in the adult world. Organized by an initiative called Fostering Success Michigan, these young women and men interact with experts to learn about important life skills like budgeting and getting health care.

And thanks to Lost Voices, this year they had the chance to learn how to express themselves in song!

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By Grant Drake, MD
Lost Voices Board President

I want to call special attention to our recent Tom Saunders Memorial Concert for Lost Voices, performed this past April. It highlights how far Lost Voices has come in our 15 years and especially our advances in this last year dealing with the challenges posed by COVID-19.

This concert featured some of our original Lost Voices singer-songwriters, artists who pioneered our program and are still going strong for us. Josh White, Jr. worked alongside Founder Mike Ball when he developed the original workshops in 2006 at Maxey Boys Training School. Not long after that, Kitty Donohoe joined Mike at the Adrian Girls Training School. Annie Capps has been another one of our key workshop facilitators almost from the beginning, and along with husband Rod Capps they have become major boosters and Lost Voices concert performers.
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After what has seemed like endless months of interacting with the Lost Voices kids in little boxes on computer screens, we now have our entire team vaccinated against COVID-19 and ready to once again work with them in person. The month of August will see us at the Whaley Children’s Center in Flint, Wedgwood Christian Services in Grand Rapids, and a new facility to us, the Methodist Children’s Home Society in Redford.

During the months of isolation, the kids were remarkably resilient, and they completely embraced the technological work-arounds we came up with. Still, it will be amazing to be back in a room with them again! Just to remind of you of the complex blend of hope, confusion, anguish, and beauty of the kind of songs the kids come up with, here is a personal song written and sung with pride by a fourteen year-old boy when we were at Whaley  back in 2019:

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If you missed the Premiere, you can still watch it

Join Josh White, Jr., Kitty Donohoe, Annie & Rod Capps and Lost Voices founder Mike Ball on stage in a new Concert for Lost Voices. Presented in conjunction with the Trinity House Theatre, the evening pays loving tribute to our late Lost Voices president Tom Saunders. A dedicated supporter of Lost Voices and live music in general, Tom was taken from us nearly four years ago.

• Watch It On Facebook
• Watch it on the Trinity House YouTube Channel
• Watch it on the Lost Voices YouTube Channel

The concert is free for all, and donations will be gratefully accepted to support our work with the kids.

A Call-Out for Lost Voices

Over the years, one of the most gratifying things about our Lost Voices work has been the partnerships we’ve enjoyed with other organizations. In our last Lost Voices Newsletter we talked about working with District 6380 of Rotary International, Epic Races, and sixteen other mental health-related nonprofits in the E-Race the Stigma Mile-A-Day Marathon. This ongoing effort to stamp out the stigma attached to seeking help for mental health issues has not only been a wonderful success, it has also earned us a call-out from some really amazing Women from Michigan. Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Debbie Stabinow both found the time to support the Marathon, and to mention us!  (more…)

A Micro-History of Trauma Informed Care

If you spend any sort of time around the Lost Voices crew, you’re bound to hear the term “Trauma Informed Care.” When we’re feeling all official and governmental, we like to call it “TIC.” Either way, it’s one of the most basic principles behind what we do. The concept is that anyone who has experienced trauma is mentally and even physically changed by the experience, and there are very specific and beneficial ways to acknowledge and deal with that fact.

Lost Voices has been using the tools of Trauma Informed Care since our first session back in 2006. We nurtured a culture of non-judgmental freedom, a sort of semi-controlled chaos where the kids could say or do pretty much anything they felt. Our founder, Mike Ball, took this approach for no reason other than it seemed like the right thing to do.

The thing is, we had no idea that there was a name for what we were doing. (more…)

When the Healing Happens

We just finished up a Lost Voices program with a new group of young women, and like all of our programs, the results were life-changing. Even though we’re all still stuck in our little Zoom boxes on computer screens and iPads, the flow of trust and emotion was amazing.

The group song they came up with was powerful, but deceptively simple:

If I Could Ask You For Help

If I could ask you for help, would you give me your ear
If I could ask you for help, even though you’re not here
Facing my fears even though there are tears

You showed me love, even though you’re not here
You showed me trust, that shows me you care
I know it’s my time, to take my risk
And let you fly…

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Music as Medicine

I’m pretty sure that every musician knows, on some level, that music is one of the most healing things we can have in our lives. I can’t count the number of times, going back more than six decades, that I found a safe refuge for myself by picking up one of my instruments and making some noise. To this day I try to never be more than a few feet from a guitar. 

But I don’t think a lot of us realize how extensively the healing power of music has been studied by people in white lab coats who stick electrodes on your head and hook you to machines that beep and whir. Amy Biancolli, writing in the psychiatric Web magazine “Mad in America,” says that this is exactly the case. (more…)