Maya's Music Therapy Fund

Mission:
The mission of Maya's Music Therapy Fund is to empower people with developmental disabilities to increase their autonomy, build community, and expand artistic expression through music therapy, while improving their physical, social, and cognitive skills.

Vision:
Maya's Music Therapy Fund unlocks the potential and enriches the lives of people with developmental disabilities through music therapy. Our vision is that music therapy will be open, accessible, and free or affordable to all people with developmental disabilities in the San Francisco Bay Area, supporting their artistic expression and fostering their connection to a broader community.

Maya Cooper was a severely disabled young person who used music to participate most fully in the world around her. Maya's parents created Maya's Music Therapy Fund to remember Maya -- and to allow others to continue the joy she experienced through music.

Check this out!
We now have a video, made for us by William Smock.
It gives you an impression of what our
group music therapy sessions look like,
and explains some of our goals and methods.

Home Page Image

In June 2018, our Co-Founder and Chairperson
of the Board Dr. Joanna Cooper was given the
Jefferson Award by CBS San Francisco
for outstanding volunteerism.
The news clip below from KPIX-5 shows Dr. Cooper's
interview as well as our music therapist
at work at the Ed Roberts Campus.

For more than 30 years Maya's Music Therapy Fund has combined the power of music with the dedication and skills of a talented, board-certified music therapist, Titia Martin-Nagel, MT-BC. And our clients reap the benefits. Collaborating with agencies that serve clients from Alameda and Contra Costa Counties in Northern California, Maya’s Music Therapy Fund works with people with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, brain injury, hearing and vision impairment, ADHD, Rett syndrome, and other developmental disabilities.

Slideshow 1: Music Therapy In Action
Photographs of our music therapist at work with some participants.

Our music therapist works toward specific, individualized, non-musical goals including improved communication skills, decreased inappropriate behavior, enhanced academic and motor skills, increased attention span, strengthened social and leisure skills, pain management and stress reduction.

Experiencing the unique power of music to engage our brains and our bodies, clients gain physical and social skills while building self-esteem and confidence during individual and group music therapy sessions.

Whether you are an expert on music therapy or a newcomer to its uses and goals, we hope you'll find useful information on this website. Thank you for your interest -- and for your support of Maya's Music Therapy Fund.

MMTF Board of Directors
Joanna Cooper, MD, Chairperson & Co-founder
Phyllis van Kranenburgh, Secretary · Opher Peled
Stephen Pollack · Charlie Pollack, MD, Interim Executive Director & Treasurer
Heather Rosnow · Joanna Smith · Ellen Reinheimer Whitaker
Music Therapist
Titia Martin-Nagel, MT-BC
Webmaster
Jacob Martin