Embedded Community Artists Pilot Project Targets Youth Wellness
By Kathy Register
Embracing the idea that the arts can have a positive impact on the wellness of young teenagers, this fall the Greater Lowell Community Foundation (GLCF) has launched a pilot project to establish four embedded-artist programs specifically designed to improve youth wellness through creative engagement.
Titled Arts Elevate: Embedded Community Artists for Youth Wellness in Greater Lowell, the pilot project embeds four artists in 12-week residencies at nonprofit organizations in Acton, Concord, Groton and Lowell, explained Jennifer Aradhya, GLCF’s Vice President of Marketing, Programs & Strategy.
The Arts Elevate initiative was developed for Greater Lowell with lead funding from the Barr Foundation through its Creative Commonwealth Initiative. GLCF seeks to raise funds to enable Arts Elevate to be scaled and shared with more nonprofits and artists in the future. Arts Elevate is a program with three core components: The Embedded Community Artists initiative; Arts Equity Grants pairing artists and nonprofit organizations; and a professional-development offering for artists.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control, 42 percent of teens experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” said Aradhya. “And 32 percent are estimated to have an anxiety disorder.”
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, GLCF has recognized that youth health and wellness is a high-need area,” she said. “Applications for our youth-wellness grants draw the highest number of applications, clearly demonstrating the need in our community. We believe that youth have innate creativity and desire for authentic self-expression, and that artistic engagement can provide unique pathways to emotional processing and growth,” added Aradhya. “We are hopeful that through Arts Elevate, peer connections can be made which are critical for healthy development.”
Rita Sahu, Arts Elevate Senior Program Manager, agrees. “A lot of our cognitive development as adults is impacted by what we experience during our teen years or earlier,” she said.
“There is a lot of research that shows that there are factors that can positively impact development, arts being one of them,” explained Sahu, an MIT-trained engineer leading an academic wellbeing initiative at MIT.
By design, each of the four nonprofits in the pilot program is unique and differs in its approach about how the arts can impact and improve youth wellness, Sahu said. The individual artists also bring different skills and interests to the program, she added.
Artist Shoni Hallock-Martin makes handmade books and will work with youth on multi-disciplinary art projects at Danny’s Place in Acton. Visual storyteller Tom Flint will create collaborative, community-centered film projects with teens at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord.
Artist/educator Andrea Wilson will lead programs in mixed media at the Prescott Community Center in Groton. And literary/theater artist Anthony Febo will bring theater and spoken-word programs to middle schoolers at Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell in Lowell.
“Ideally, we want to offer a range of arts exposure and opportunities, since young minds have different interests, and we want to provide a variety of modalities so they can pick and choose,” said Sahu.
The Arts Elevate program will operate as a cohort model, she explained. This means both artists and nonprofits will participate in a shared learning experience, engaging in peer support, cross-sector collaboration, and professional-development opportunities, while sharing expertise and collectively developing metrics and data sets throughout the program.
Helping to make that knowledge-flow happen is Arts Elevate Lead Trainer Kori Thomas, a creative place-maker also known as the muralist Quest Nine. She has extensive experience designing and facilitating arts programs that focus on youth health and wellness.
After navigating a difficult childhood, Thomas discovered that creating art greatly improved her own mental health. “I only started painting because I experienced art therapy sessions in my mid-twenties. I never even took an art class before that,” she explained.
“Now, I try to encourage people to ask one big question – ‘How do you create?’ – because we’re all creating something every single day. Whether we get up in the morning and pick our outfits, or we cook a meal, we’re all artists in our own way.
“Being able to show everyone that they have an artist that lives within them, is very important. And I think that’s what speaks most to the kids.”
Thomas helped organize a six-hour Arts Elevate training session for the participating artists and nonprofits, using the Create, Connect and Catalyze framework developed by the national Creative Youth Development Partnership. “Create, Connect and Catalyze is very similar to
UDL: Universal Design for Learning, which promotes awareness that different students have different needs when it comes to learning,” said Thomas.
“It’s all about establishing a safe environment and creating an equal opportunity for growth.
Through this understanding, we are able to connect the community of students and allow them
to feel comfortable enough to express themselves, and to share that expression.”
Focusing on this inclusive, creative approach with middle-schoolers can have long-term positive effects, stressed Thomas. “If you can build self-esteem and confidence – at any age – those qualities are really going to stick with you. And if you can create these tools at a younger age, imagine how much more capable you can be in the world.”
Ultimately, Aradhya explained, GLCF plans to expand Arts Elevate and replicate similar artist-in-residency programs. “We’re in an artist-rich community,” she said. “There are lots of artists in the 21 cities and towns in the GLCF service area, and lots of nonprofits that could benefit from this incredible creative resource pool.
“Our goal with this Embedded Artists pilot program is to learn from it, build a toolkit and expand this work in Greater Lowell.”
For further information about the Greater Lowell Community Foundation Arts Elevate program or to support this initiative, visit: https://www.glcfoundation.org/arts-elevate/.
About Greater Lowell Community Foundation
Established in 1997, the Greater Lowell Community Foundation (GLCF) is a philanthropic organization comprised of more than 450 funds dedicated to improving the quality of life in 21 neighboring cities and towns. With financial assets of over $70 million, GLCF annually awards grants and scholarships to hundreds of worthy nonprofits and students. It is powered by the winning combination of donor-directed giving, personal attention from Foundation staff, and an in-depth understanding of local needs. The generosity of our donors has enabled the Community Foundation to award more than $40 million to the Greater Lowell community.
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CAPTION: The Arts Elevate Training Team: Jennifer Aradhya, GLCF’s Vice President of Marketing, Programs & Strategy, Arts Elevate Lead Trainer Kori Thomas and Rita Sahu, Arts Elevate Senior Program Manager.
