A long time ago, someone told me that the reason most people think they are bad with math is that they had a bad experience early on and decided to give up on it. Before I teach my dosage calc class, I start with a few basic diagrams in which I first draw a capital letter A and ask the students what it means, followed by a lower case a, and then a digram of a horse. Once they have correctly described each, I write a fraction on the board and ask them what it is. After many guesses, I explain that it is little more than a diagram that represents an amount, much like the As represented sounds, and the picture represented a thing. Once past that hurdle, AI go back to equating much of their dosage calc math to the use of money, just like it is taught in kindergarten.

Using money to hold your audience captive is one way of keeping students interested in math.  Before you do this however, it is sometimes neccessary to give a pep talk.  Ask students to put past feeling about math aside and ask them to take the subject on as "a new challenge " .  Encourage them to be in it to win.  Find out what peaks each student interest (what excites them) and incorporate your findings in building your math examples. 

Good Luck!