The Importance of Arts Education &
Art as a Vehicle for Sustainable Mental Health Resources
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Bringing Arts Back where they belong: as a crucial & permanent part of childhood development
"Scientific studies increasingly confirm what human beings across cultures and throughout time have long recognized: we are wired for art. The arts in all of their modalities can improve our physical and mental health, amplify our ability to prevent, manage, or recover from disease challenges, enhance brain development in children, build more equitable communities, and foster wellbeing through multiple biological systems."
--NeuroArts Blueprint
Arts education has been gradually disappearing from schools in CA for the last 45 years due to a combination of factors related to funding and increased focus on test scores. Those most disproportionately impacted are communities without the resources to pay out of pocket. When a school faces the choice of a nurse, a school psychologist, or an art teacher, for example, hard decisions must be made... art and mental health resources are first on the cutting block.
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With the increase in anxiety, depression and suicide amongst children, teens and adults, particularly those with special needs, over the last 30 years, we are at a tipping point in a mental health crisis. If it is not addressed from all possible angles, the problem will only increase with time, as the children who have not developed the critical skills needed to counteract already existing risk factors become teens and adults without these skills, raising children without these skills, now not even available through their schools or their communities.
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Can you imagine a world where communication, self-expression, self-care, creativity, mindfulness, resilience, empathy, and self-awareness are as well developed as test-taking skills? The possibilities are endless. Our goal is to create practical, therapeutic art workshops for every child right now. We can keep SAYING these things are important, but what are we actually doing?
