Programs

Healing Through the Arts:

Artists Mentoring Against Racism, Drugs & Violence

Healing Through the Arts is a partnership between the Institute for Arts and Humanities Education, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, Rutgers Latino Center for Arts and Culture, Puerto Rican Action Board, and Suydam Street Reformed Church in New Brunswick.  

The City of New Brunswick has seen a dramatic change in its population over the past twenty years, with the rapid growth in the Caribbean and Central American immigrant communities.  Over the years, this population shift led to increasing tensions between the older Latino generations and the new immigrants.  In addition, law enforcement and social service agencies reported increasing violence between the diverse Latino communities and the African American community.  Other crimes, such as sexual abuse, drug related crimes, vandalism, and domestic and youth gang violence also increased.  The resulting gang culture – the behavior, fashion and lifestyle – was adopted by many of the young people in those communities, whether they were gang members or not. 

To address these problems, we joined with the above mentioned community organizations in 1997 and created Healing Through the Arts.

The program is founded on a growing body of research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts and our own experience that demonstrates the effectiveness of arts-based programming for reducing at-risk behavior by teens. 

While learning through other disciplines may often focus on development of a single skill or talent, the arts engage multiple abilities and skills, nurturing the development of cognitive, personal and social skills that can be applied to all facets of a young person’s life. 

Healing Through the Arts is a five-week summer program that serves approximately fifty students per year.  The program consists of a series of arts projects and healthy lifestyle workshops, designed to foster a positive sense of self, strengthen understanding of discipline, develop tolerance for others and teach how to work as a team toward a common cause.  The faculty includes professional artists, health specialists, social workers, and conflict resolution specialists.

The group art projects focus on family and cultural history and traditions, helping the students appreciate their distinct customs and explore the reasons for racial and social problems between communities.  Professional artists help the teens imagine new self-images to replace negative stereotypes by creating original work in the performing and visual arts.  The projects empower the students to express their emotions in a constructive manner and develop perceptual skills. 

Counselors specializing in sexual abuse, conflict resolution and substance abuse prevention guide the students through health awareness exercises and discussions to encourage students to explore how they can change social attitudes and negative patterned behavior.  The students are taught how to develop basic life skills, such as decision-making, critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills.

The program has been successful.  It is clear from the counselors’ reports and teens’ self-evaluations that the program has made a positive change in the students’ attitudes towards themselves, their peers and their communities.